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Copyright N°. 



COPYRIGHT 


DEPOSIT. 















Why Defend the Nation? 


“The volume is small — 
The drops are precious 

“When the basic truths 
herein written are more 
universally implanted in 
American homes , the 
heritage of posterity will 
be safer ” — W. B. G. 




Why Defend the Nation? 


Sound Americanism 
for 

Mother, Dad, and the Boys 


Colonel FRANK D. ELY, U. S. A. 


Chief of Staff, VI. Corps 


"More Majorum" 

(After the Manner of Our Forefathers) 


CHICAGO: 
LAIRD & LEE, INC. 
PUBLISHERS 




ii A 
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Copyright, 1924 
By FRANK D. ELY 


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CONTENTS 


Foreword . 9 

I. Americanism . 11 

II. National Defense— Its Need.16 

III. National Defense— Its Purposes .24 

IV. National Defense —Its Essentials.30 

V. Peace and Pacifism.36 

VI. The Organized Reserves.44 

VII. The Dent in Our Armor .53 

VIII. Weaves in the Fabric .59 

IX. Building a Nation.63 

APPENDIX. 

Prestige— A Reprint . 65 

The Message of National Defense —A Reprint.68 

The Army in Peace— By Secretary of War John W. 
Weeks . 71 


7 









































FOREWORD 



point these humble thoughts on my country’s faults, needs, and 
glories. 

The lifeblood of the Republic is education; and more espe¬ 
cially the thorough understanding and correct evaluation 
throughout the masse*of the people of those principles and ideals 
of free government for the sound establishment of which our 
forefathers fought and died on the battlefield, and adherence 
to which has made America truly great. 

We cannot draw blood from a turnip. Mediocrity and su¬ 
perficiality are crimes when caught in high places. Truth is 
mighty, but requires dissemination that it may exert a free 
influence. The principles which govern advertising in busi¬ 
ness apply with no diminished force in teaching good govern¬ 
ment; and no less qualifications than those requisite in the 
high professions and in representative business can possibly fit 
men to hold public office. We must inculcate American tradi¬ 
tions and ideals in our present and in our oncoming generations 
to the end that they too shall prize freedom and liberty above 
all other earthly gifts, and shall ever guard them as precious 
treasures. For even as we ourselves prize and live this in¬ 
estimable heritage of ours may we rest assured that our chil¬ 
dren, and our children’s children, shall likewise cherish and 
enjoy its blessings. 

In all the real tests of her manhood America has stood 
staunch and unyielding. Great dangers are easier of national 
recognition, diagnosis, and vigorous treatment than is the in¬ 
sidious decay which threatens even in our outward prosperity. 
The why of America lies in her traditions and ideals, which 
must ever be preserved. 

On additional duty as Reserve Affairs Officer in the Sixth 
Corps Area I learned that the building up of the Reserves is 
best accomplished by the broader work of building National 
Defense; and the latter term is really synonomous with “Ameri- 


9 


10 


Why Defend the Nation? 


canism.” The hearty assistance and loyalty given in this work 
by over eight thousand Reserve officers in the States of Illinois, 
Michigan, and Wisconsin, together with the active support 
received from the press, have encouraged this wider effort to 
get the message home to the youth of the whole country. Our 
boys of today will tomorrow be holding the helm of the good 
ship Destiny, America, Unltd., and every good American should 
do all he can to insure fair sailing. 

If these pages may arouse some added fulfillment of the need 
for intelligent, well directed, and sustained effort to instruct our 
youth in the value of their great heritage, thus insuring a 
sounder basis for the forming of true individual American 
opinion on all the great questions where these successively arise 
as the years roll on, then will they have accomplished the 
author’s fondest hopes and desires. 

Frank D. Ely. 

Chicago, Illinois, 

January 1, 1924. 


Why Defend the Nation ? 


CHAPTER I 


Americanism 


RE we doing all that is essential to insure that in the pres- 



ent and future this Nation shall not only endure, but shall 
healthily grow and develop in full keeping with the advance 
of science and of civilization, while still sacredly preserving 
American ideals? 

Three hundred years ago this country was a virgin wilder¬ 
ness. Today it leads the world in power and wealth and in of¬ 
fering a desirable residence for free men. How did it all come 
about ? 

This Nation wasn’t invented. It didn’t “just grow.” It is 
an evolution, due to earnest effort of real men and women who, 
possessing high principles and high ideals, devoted their lives 
to them. It has cost much blood and treasure. It is ours to 
enjoy—ours to improve and glorify, and ours to perpetuate and 
hand on to posterity. This means we must ever defend it 
against all its foes, whether within or without; and the most 
subtle and dangerous foe is the one who works from within. 
This heritage is never to be regarded in the light of a personal 
gift, as we regard an inheritance of real or personal property; 
it is too precious, and other rights than our own are involved. 

The ever increasing complexity and hurry of modern life 
are such that, unless purposeful effort be made to preserve and 
safeguard the national heritage, our oncoming generations may 
lose sight of those high ideals adherence to which has wrought 
this Nation—ideals which we today include under the term 
“Americanism.” 

Our forefathers sought these shores to escape oppression and 
tyranny in one form and another—in a word, for freedom. 


11 



12 


Why Defend the Nation? 


They brought with them many Old-World prejudices which 
retarded early growth. But the desire for representative gov¬ 
ernment; for tolerance of worship, each according to his own 
conscience, for justice, and for peace, was strongly inherent in 
all the Colonies. Throughout two centuries of growth and de¬ 
velopment the need of a Union to secure strength and protec¬ 
tion became increasingly apparent; but such a Union was im¬ 
possible so long as the Colonies remained subject to a foreign 
power. Finally, in 1776, independence was declared; but the 
mere declaration alone did not secure it. Only after long years 
of war, entailing untold suffering, hardship, and deprivation, 
during which the Colonies were held together by the force of 
character and fortitude of Washington, Franklin, Samuel and 
John Adams, Robert Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and other 
patriots of equally high ideals, determination and enduring 
fame, was the enemy forced to surrender and the war ter¬ 
minated. But even then Independence was not conceded by the 
mother-country, which a quarter of a century later forced upon 
us a further effort to defend our birthright. 

The same men who were so instrumental in winning inde¬ 
pendence for the country were prominent in the early welding 
of the Colonies into this Nation—the United States of North 
America. Not until eleven years after independence had been 
declared was a Constitution agreed upon; and two years later 
it was ratified by all of the thirteen Colonies. Thus was born 
in 1789, or one hundred and thirty-four years ago, this great 
free Nation which always has been, is now and ever must be 
the envy of the oppressed throughout the world—a land of 
the free! 

In any study of American history it will be noted that 
through all the trials, tribulations, and growth of this country 
its development has been accomplished only through strict 
adherence to the high ideals which gave it birth. Real de¬ 
votion to the idea of “Union” reached its height a consider¬ 
able period after the adoption of the Constitution. The set¬ 
tlement of one of the great questions which the new Nation 
fell heir to—the question of slavery—rent ties asunder, cost 
a million lives, and rocked the young Nation to its very foun¬ 
dations. But the question was settled for all time, and hap¬ 
pily settled, as now conceded alike by North and South. And 


Americanism 


13 


the settlement of this trying question further settled, and for¬ 
ever, the fact of an inseparable Union of the States. 

From the very birth of the Nation there have always been 
elements in its population (as there are in all peoples) inimical 
to the best that was in it—inimical to its development as a free 
people, tolerant, good-natured, and true to all mankind but 
mighty and terrible in jkust wrath. Such elements have gone 
by various names at different times, and at present are known 
as bolshevists, communists, etc. One glance over the map, and 
we see what has resulted where such elements of society have 
gained the ascendancy. We have much to learn from other 
peoples; but nothing that is desirable is to be learned from 
any political creed wherein hatred, intolerance, waste, ignor¬ 
ance, and disrespect for law and established institutions take 
the place of those virtues reverence for which has carried 
America to the very pinnacle of progress among all the na¬ 
tions of the world. 

The necessity for adopting a Constitution and establishing 
a government that should bo a Union and possess strength 
and coercive power are clearly stated in the preamble to our 
Constitution. The Confederation had failed, principally for 
lack of power to impose taxes and to raise armies, both sov¬ 
ereign powers. A more perfect union—justice—domestic peace 
—a common defense—the general welfare—and the insuring 
of all these blessings and of liberty to posterity were all actual 
needs, and these constitute a set of ideals for accomplishment 
which demand not only the exercise of our own best efforts 
but the best effort of each succeeding generation so long as 
the world shall endure. 

No structure can be more enduring than its foundation, or 
than the material of which it is built. The foundations of the 
structure of this Government are our Constitution and our 
truly American ideals; and these have been proved to be 
sound throughout all our history. These foundations are per¬ 
manent, unchanging. But the material of the structure of 
our great Republic is our whole body politic—our entire pop¬ 
ulation, ever changing with the generations. To date this 
material has been sufficiently resistant to false theory and so 
true to American interests that it has successfully foiled every 
attack, whether from foe within or from foe without. This 


14 


Why Defend the Nation? 


has been so because of the true understanding held in the 
masses of the people. In the changed conditions and increased 
complexity of life in this country, education in the basic Amer¬ 
ican ideals and principles is far less universal than formerly; 
and we must assume the duty of properly preparing this ma¬ 
terial of government to serve all its needs, purposes, and ends 
by education during its growth, just as the steel-maker insures 
the quality of his product by correct processes and treatment 
during manufacture. So the question arises, and must here¬ 
after be ever with us: Are we doing all that is essential to 
insure that in the present and future this nation shall not only 
endure, but shall healthily grow and develop in full keeping 
with the advances of science and of civilization , while still 
sacredly preserving American idealsf 

That, fellow Americans, is the great all-inclusive question 
before us, now and forevermore. With the ever increasing 
complexity of life; with the increased difficulty of properly 
assimilating our foreign populations; due to the prevalence 
throughout much of the world of unsound and revolutionary 
doctrines—because of these and other and new difficulties which 
will arise from time to time to be met and solved by this and 
each succeeding generation, it behooves every true American to 
be now and forevermore on guard. 


7E, THE people of the United States, in 
VV order to 

1. Form a more perfect union, 

2. Establish justice, 

3. Insure domestic tranquillity, 

4. Provide for the common defense, 

5. Promote the general welfare and 

6. Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 

our posterity, 

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the 
United States of America .”—Preamble to the Con¬ 
stitution, 

The form in which the above is arranged sets forth 
more clearly the six great basic purposes of our fore¬ 
fathers in the forming of this Nation. They were the 
fundamental and determining reasons why all the Col¬ 
onies, after over two centuries of individual struggles, 
found it necessary to form a strong central government in 
and through which all might endure and benefit. 


CHAPTER II. 


National Defense—Its Need 

W E ARE a heterogeneous people of widely differing an¬ 
cestral traditions, past environment, and future hopes and 
ambitions, but with ample justification for belief in all. As 

citizens of a common country in which we live and have our 

being it becomes our duty, in all wisdom, to now and again 
pause, take stock of the times, reckon on the trend of events, 
and to seriously ask ourselves and our neighbors whether this 
or that course now being run is wise or right; just as the 

mariner who, his transit on the sun at its zenith by day and 

on the stars by night, checks and verifies his position on the 
chart that he may know to a certainty that his vessel will 
avoid the rocks and shoals and make safe harbor. And so if 
we would run true as a nation we who are responsible must 
first know the course, and then by checks and balances con¬ 
stantly prove that those whom we have placed in charge are 
holding to that course. 

Those who go down to the sea in ships have grave concern 
that the captain and mates should be competent navigators; 
and so with the Ship of State, we, as fellow owners and trav¬ 
elers therein on the common journey of life, must feel inter¬ 
est in the skill and wisdom of those we charge with the care 
and guidance of the affairs of the Nation. 

Insurance of life and property is a national trait—an Amer¬ 
ican custom and habit of highest business sagacity; yet no 
insurance compares in value with insurance of the Republic; 
for with that lost, all is lost. 

There is, there always has been, and there doubtless always 
will be, much misunderstanding among the people over that 
part of their own affairs which pertains to government. Life 
offers much to interest and divert; time is fleeting, the human 
mind is limited, and the demands of those dependent upon us 
are perhaps so insistent that we know not how to pause in 
our daily work. But as we love those near and dear to us, 


1 6 


National Defense—Its Need 


17 


and as we see, day after day, our country affording homes 
of peace and joy and plenty and gladness to over a hundred 
millions of our countrymen, while just across the sea desti¬ 
tution and suffering prevail in many lands—lands where new 
and strange ideas of government have gained alarming cre¬ 
dence among despairing peoples filled only with a natural desire 
to ease their sufferings and improve their position, but whose 
efforts have resulted in their more complete undoing—it be¬ 
hooves us the more to look to our own safety and to the safety 
and prosperity of those we shall leave behind us here, and 
to know just where our course leads. 

Ours is a country of the people and for the people, where 
the people rule through direct representation. From its very 
origin it has been a land of the free and a home for the 
oppressed of other and less happy lands. What it has been 
it must always be, and this is best assured by holding fast to 
those principles, ideals, and traditions that are purely Ameri¬ 
can and adherence to which has brought wealth, gladness, pros¬ 
perity and peace to the land. Liberty and freedom, truth and 
justice have been our watchwords. Respect for the will of 
the majority and for the rights of the minority; respect for 
law and established institutions; respect for other men’s opin¬ 
ions and beliefs; respect for the processes of evolution as against 
those of revolution; and respect for the dignity of labor with 
complete freedom to engage therein as we desire, and to wor¬ 
ship according to the dictates of our own conscience with no 
man or set of men to say us nay—these are some of the ideals 
which have served in the building of this Nation, and which 
all true Americans cherish; and, please God, let us all by our 
united effort, and by His aid, assure that America shall ever 
go forward, ever a land of liberty for her sons and for all 
others who here gain asylum. 

Such a heritage as ours seldom comes to any people. Once 
gained, it must be insured to all posterity by the wisdom, fore¬ 
sight, and unflinching courage of generation after generation 
as these in turn succeed to the temporary charge as well as 
to the blessings thereof, so long as time and the world shall 
endure. 

Despite ancient and inherited prejudices detrimental to the 


18 


Why Defend the Nation? 


development of needed powers, this country has always arisen to 
meet every emergency with which it has been confronted. 
Many of these efforts have proved costly, and have strained 
the Nation well nigh to the breaking point, but, like the race 
from which we sprung, we have somehow “muddled through.” 
But even though successful in the past, those very successes, 
in the light of deeper knowledge and changed conditions, warn 
us against any implicit faith in dependence upon emergency 
action. A city does not wait until the flames rage and the 
mob loots to organize fire and police protection, nor await the 
ravages of disease and pestilence to insure good water supply 
and establish proper health measures. 

Our ability to meet and solve the great questions which have 
been vital to our development as a great free nation has rested 
mainly on the sound basic training of the entire body politic. 
The “little red schoolhouse” was the forum which primarily 
fitted for their life’s work- many of the greatest leaders known 
to our history. The nineteenth century was one devoted in 
the main to the settlement and upbuilding of our undeveloped 
territory and lands. Living thus close to the soil as a great 
agricultural people, simplicity was the rule in life, and the 
absorbing questions thought out and discussed were in the main 
those fundamental to the development of the Nation. 

Now the free lands of our great West are no more. The 
industrial strides of the Nation have placed our industrial 
products ahead of the agricultural in value, and the environ¬ 
ment of great masses of our people has changed from the free¬ 
dom of the farm to the congestion of the cities. Life has 
grown harder and more complex. The fundamental has be¬ 
come clouded and overshadowed by the immediate questions 
of how to live and how to gain a competence, our avenues 
for which are concededly unequaled elsewhere. 

Under these changed conditions the foundation for assured 
safe action, which is well-informed, sound judgment in all men, 
has become weakened. The motives for the establishment of 
the Nation, and which have set it free and far above all 
others on this globe, are in danger of becoming hopelessly ob¬ 
scured. As against party government and majority rule we 


National Defense—Its Need 


19 


are drifting toward the dangerous shoals of the bloc, of many 
parties, and of minority rule. In these conditions the politician, 
rather than the statesman, flourishes, and his breed is not the 
one which builded this Nation from a wilderness. 

The conditions of our masses to which we have alluded as 
establishing a danger line exist in practically all of the older 
countries, where they have been of far longer duration; but 
there they have fewer of our blessings, such as our higher 
wages, regulated industries, free hospitals and libraries, free 
schools, improved and sanitary living conditions, amusements 
unending and within the reach of all, in addition to our full 
possession of the individual rights guaranteed under our Con¬ 
stitution. Thus our dangers are less than theirs, and our 
structure of government safer. But with lesser questions per¬ 
mitted to fill and sufficing to occupy the public mind, lesser 
men suffice to meet the demands for filling public office; 
mediocrity rules, and superficiality may be said to be one of 
the crimes of the day and age. Mere politicians are hailed 
as statesmen, malingerers and profiteers abound, and the public 
treasury is oppressed with demands the meeting of which has 
inordinately taxed agriculture and industry and endangered 
stability. To cure our real and imaginary political and eco¬ 
nomic ills, legislation is invoked on the slightest pretext, re¬ 
gardless of the fact that wealth results from the untrammeled 
operations of commerce under the laws of supply and demand. 
Freedom of speech too frequently verges on license, and dis¬ 
cipline has all but vanished. Over-regulation of personal 
habits; the over-development of reforms into well established, 
well paying occupations for the professional reformers; gov¬ 
ernmental interference in business to an illogical degree; and 
widespread neglect of our religious duties to our own very 
decided detriment, are among our most common evils. Radi¬ 
calism threatens established property interests, and until the 
rights of property are clearly respected—until the frame of 
mind throughout the great body politic demands most thor¬ 
ough respect for property as well as for life, business cannot 
gain that volume and stability which the natural impetus of 
world growth offers to impart. When business flourishes there 
is ample employment, fair prices, and good times for all. 


20 


Why Defend the Nation? 


With business chained, threatened, constantly railed against, 
capital in very self-protection withholds that which it has, 
awaiting a more opportune day for release. Cities and States, 
seizing the opportunity in unemployed capital desirous of some 
safe return, are becoming increasingly burdened with debt 
through the ceaseless issue of tax-exempt securities to secure 
funds for local improvements, thus defeating the Federal aim 
for income to meet the national budget and throwing the 
burden of the load upon the merely well-to-do and the poorer 
classes, as against the rich, upon whom Congress intended 
it to lie. 

Thus the fact stands clear that the time is at hand when 
we must take inventory, separate truth from fallacy, and dis¬ 
card the latter. 

It was John Ruskin, a man far ahead of his day, who said 
that if we would see a thing correctly we must see the whole 
of it. Any correct view of the needs and duties of govern¬ 
ment in America must, then, start with its beginning—with 
the Constitution or framework of the government in which 
we live. Better yet, it should go into Colonial history and 
note the facts which led our forefathers to the adoption of 
that Constitution, after trying weaker and unsatisfactory 
measures; study the failures of the Continental Congress and 
its successor, the Articles of Confederation; and when that 
is done any fair-minded American will concede that the pur¬ 
poses of government, so clearly enunciated in the preamble to 
the Great Document, are one and all as vital and essential 
today as when so decreed by those high-minded patriots who, 
with clear brains and stout hearts in rugged bodies, builded 
for themselves and for all posterity the very highest “place 
in the sun” known to the nations of the world. 

Those basic purposes for forming this government, enun¬ 
ciated in the preamble to the Constitution, are broad and 
vital: A more perfect Union, for union was found essential 
to strength and sovereignty; the establishment of justice, since 
justice was the demand of every colony from its very birth; 
domestic peace, so essential to happy internal relations and de¬ 
velopment; to provide for the common defense, a lesson thor¬ 
oughly learned throughout Colonial history and in the dark 


National Defense—Its Need 


21 


years immediately following on the Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence, when the Nation’s efforts were all but paralyzed in the 
actual establishment of that independence under the operation 
of the Continental Congress and, later, under the Articles 
of Confederation, the weakness of both establishing the neces¬ 
sity for centralized authority with full coercive and sovereign 
powers; the promotion of the general welfare , a broad pro¬ 
vision carrying the necessary authority for all development 
and improvement for which time might develop the need and 
which might not be included under the other provisions; and 
lastly, the insuring of the blessings of liberty to themselves 
and to all posterity, than which no other desire was more 
strongly intrenched or more effective in securing independence. 

These six broad purposes, the ground plan of the govern¬ 
ment we today enjoy, are as essential to the continued growth 
and the maintenance of this Nation as they were when orig¬ 
inally enunciated and adopted. One hundred and thirty-four 
years of growth under the Constitution (during which period 
the Nation has endured through trials that would have ter¬ 
minated it had it other than the soundest of foundations) have 
thoroughly demonstrated its fitness to endure as planned, and 
further, that it could not endure as a free Nation if subjected 
to any vital change. Tinkering with the Constitution is most 
dangerous. 

The facts above stated should lie deep in the minds of every 
man and every woman who exercises the rights of suffrage. 
That they are not so is very apparent from the constituencies 
which return to seats of power men who have demonstrated 
the most thorough unfitness to have voice in the affairs of 
government. Truly, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” 
and it should become the vow of every good American to con¬ 
tribute all that he may to the furtherance of knowledge of 
the essentials of our government, and to give his unqualified 
support to every vital basic purpose thereof. 

From the beginning of history men formed themselves into 
groups for mutual self-interest—primarily for self-protection 
and defense. This tendency of mankind—than which there 
is no other so humanly fundamental—resulting in obvious ad- 


22 


Why Defend the Nation? 


vantage to those within the groups, forced those who were 
without, and whose interests differed materially therefrom, to 
form other groups according to individual and collective needs. 
In the course of time some of the groups grew to great pro¬ 
portions and were called tribes, peoples, races, and nations. 

The stronger and more virile groups and nations have 
always dominated the weak, compelling tribute or recognition 
in one form or another; and this dominance will continue 
so long as man possesses the primitive passions and the instinct 
for trade and commercial advantage. The teachings of civili¬ 
zation will ever soften and ameliorate the effects of power 
held by one nation superior to another; but it is contrary to 
human nature to yield power without an acceptable return 
or as the result of conquest, and “water won’t run up hill.” 
A people who will not or cannot lead must then expect that 
other nations, more progressive, stronger, more virile, will 
seize the banner of leadership, which they can then only follow. 
And if they decline in emergency to defend their own—their 
homes, their business, their commerce, their domain—in a word, 
if they refuse to be soldiers when their very existence demands, 
then must they be prepared to yield—even to become slaves 
if that horrid condition be imposed; for without defensive 
strength and power they will be helpless to resist, however 
offensive to their civilization or to their sensitiveness be the 
demands. The mother who refuses “to raise her boy to be 
a soldier” in event of his country’s need should then reflect: 
“Am I not then raising him to be a slave?” 

Grave dangers to the Nation lie in our exposed and all 
too tempting wealth, which offers the very richest plunder to 
a warlike power or coalition prepared for quick struggle. They 
lie, too, in the discontent and the unbelief of certain classes 
in our ideals. They would substitute other forms, even 
communism (socialism), for this our heritage. The succes¬ 
sion of communism in Russia, so recently witnessed, was a 
catastrophe; its establishment here would be a cataclysm. 
Americans mean that America shall endure. This demands 
our watchfulness of all nations and a wise guardianship of 


our own. 


National Defense—Its Need 


23 


The purpose of good government is ever to improve the 
conditions and habitations of man; and an inglorious yielding 
by one nation to another can never serve that purpose or satisfy 
high ideals. A well-considered policy of National Defense 
is simply the sanest and the only sound insurance that our 
free institutions shall live and flourish. Its need is both para¬ 
mount and fundamental. 


CHAPTER III. 


National Defense—Its Purposes 

T HE community desire of the country is that we be let 
alone in all that pertains to government. This Nation is 
homemade, and we are proud both of the product and of 
the handiwork. If there is any fault to be found with either 
we wish to find it ourselves, and anyone who reads our press 
or who listens from the galleries to our legislatures or to our 
Congress will soon be convinced that we are masters of that 
art. Admiring the real attainments and successes of other 
nations and individuals the whole world over, cognizant of 
our weaknesses but also of our ideals, and imbued with a 
feverish desire to improve, we are well pleased with our own 
Republic; and we are more than pleased—we are convinced 
that no nation, no other form of government, compares with 
our own in affording to freemen a desirable place of residence 
and one in which we can enjoy our work and amass a compe¬ 
tence for old age. 

We have said that the Nation is “homemade.” Mr. Glad¬ 
stone said of our Constitution that it “is the most wonder¬ 
ful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and 
purpose of man.” This intended compliment has aroused a 
storm of protest and some indignation over its imputation that 
the Constitution was made off-hand, the product of invention. 
As a matter of fact the Constitution was the outgrowth of 
over two centuries of purely American experience gained with 
some sixty-nine forms of government, including all the old 
Colonial charters and the many constitutions of 1776 or im¬ 
mediately following, from the first charter granted to Sir 
Walter Raleigh in 1584 down to the framing of the present 
Constitution in 1787. Each Colony knew intimately its own 
experiences as well as many of the experiences in government 
of its neighbors; and all the experience gained was ultimately 
availed of when the representatives of all the Colonies met 
to frame our present Constitution. Some claims are advanced 


24 


National Defense—Its Purposes 


25 


that our Constitution is based on the English and Dutch torms; 
but a careful study of the history of the times together with 
the actual product achieved, and the comparison of this, clause 
by clause, with the several constitutions in effect among the 
Colonies, refute such claims. 

With the best of good will toward all peoples we hold no 
jealousy of their possessions or achievements, but glory with 
them in their successes; and we harbor no desire for aggran¬ 
dizement. We want only what we win in commerce and busi¬ 
ness under rules that are fair to all nations; and as opposed 
to aggrandizement we stand ready to buy and pay for those 
other material things which excite in us, either nationally or 
as individuals, the desire for ownership, and which are open 
for purchase. 

From the side lines in city and town, from the workshop 
and the farm, we have observed the effects of foreign diplom¬ 
acy, listened to the smooth words of foreign representatives 
and to their inspired echoes from domestic stool-pigeons, and 
deplored much that has been apparent, and later proved, falsity. 
We are impressed with the fact that, though we possess in¬ 
fluence, we have little real control, moral or other, over the 
motives or ambitions of foreign powers. We have always 
shown good faith and have exercised great patience; and be¬ 
cause of our excessive good nature and forbearance and our 
national trait of listening to the very last word from those 
of our countrymen who “don’t believe it is loaded” we have 
been forced to shed the blood of our sons to prevent the unholy 
disruption of whole peoples, including our own. We can 
nowhere see in the attitude of the rest of the world any 
absolute safety for ourselves other than in our own inherent 
strength. We have observed the steady narrowing of the 
oceans, our former safeguards, but safeguards no longer. We 
desire, in common with all nations, and as right and essential 
to growth and welfare, the freedom of commerce with all the 
world, and we deny the rights of special privileges which bar 
us from equal opportunity and a fair share therein. We be¬ 
lieve in competition in trade, based openly on values and fair¬ 
ness, and in the right of nations to protect what is actually 


26 


Why Defend the Nation? 


their own. We believe in the sacredness of treaties, and in 
the utter inviolability both of these and of the spoken word, 
given in bond. 

In the light of these convictions, we are impressed with 
the great wisdom of our forefathers in “providing for the com¬ 
mon defense” and we regard that provision as absolutely vital 
to this free government. 

In our utter abhorrence of war and all that war entails 
in suffering, want, hardship, and privation we have constantly 
invoked the real friendship of all civilized nations, and of 
their people as individuals, and sought their aid in all that 
might serve in the honorable avoidance of war, which we recog¬ 
nize as an effect as distinguished from a cause, and therefore 
avoidable through wise leadership and right conduct. To this 
end we have been a party to every conference that has been 
called to consider international measures for peace, and we 
ourselves called the Peace Conference in 1921 of all the 
Powers. And our own representatives to that conference led 
all others in proposing drastic reductions of fleets and of arma¬ 
ment, proposals which met with not unready acceptance and 
which, in the present impoverished condition of much of the 
world, is of vast direct benefit to every living human being, 
and to all posterity for decades to come. No other nation 
has ever accomplished so much. 

Because for its successful prosecution National Defense de¬ 
mands the services of every man and the use of every dollar, 
no nation can during peace maintain ample forces devoted 
solely to readiness for defense without unwise drains on all 
production and occupation. Power in defense lies in the will 
of the people , in the national morale, and in the national ability 
to rapidly convert all the potential powers in finance, industry, 
and manpower into elements for combat and for supply. No 
longer can regularly maintained forces alone afford adequate 
insurance to the Nation. War has utterly changed. Mod¬ 
ern transportation and distribution make possible the accom¬ 
plishing in weeks what formerly occupied months or years, 
or indeed was beyond accomplishment. A nation now at war 
must be all at war, else it is lost. It is felt that the late and 
lamented President Harding founded the greatest movement 
for the prevention of war, and one worthy of the award of 


National Defense—Its Purposes 27 

the Edward Bok prize, when he enunciated in one of his 
speeches on the tour which ended in his untimely death his 
conviction that in the next war into which we are forced we 
will draft every man, every industry, and every dollar for 
the prosecution of the war. 

The term “draft” is not used in any sense of confiscation. 
Obviously, every man cannot fight, every factory turn out 
war munitions, every dollar be laid in the vaults of the treas¬ 
ury. But the services, use, and credit of all will be available 
to the government as may be required, with any necessary 
adjustments to follow after the war has been terminated. 

Why should that action secure peace? For the simple rea¬ 
son that when the opponents of preparedness—the opponents 
of national insurance—realize that in the event of war they 
too must serve , and possibly must fight , they will change their 
tune; for such being the requirements on all persons and prop¬ 
erty, it will be well for them if the Nation can be made so 
ready for defense as to render attack on us most unlikely. 
And that most sane condition popularly called “preparedness” 
is the very condition which the men and women who fought 
the recent great war do most ardently desire, realizing the 
utter impotence of all other measures advanced for war pre¬ 
vention and being unwilling that this Nation shall remain 
exposed to dangers of attack while utterly unprepared. With 
the removal of all opposition, which the late President’s sug¬ 
gested method would accomplish, really sane measures insuring 
future defense should prove relatively simple and easy of 
accomplishment, to the Nation’s greatly increased safety. 

Employing every resource of the Nation, success in defense 
demands the very highest in organization, leadership, and equip¬ 
ment, and further demands just and kindly consideration of 
the human element as never before; this to assure the upbuild¬ 
ing of confidence and of that high national morale without 
which no war of proportions can again be successfully waged. 
When severity is demanded by temporary conditions it must be 
founded on justice, and that fact must be apparent to all who 
are fair-minded. The human factor is of predominant value 
and must never be misused. Napoleon’s estimate was that in 
war the moral element is to all others as 3 to 1. 


28 


Why Defend the Nation? 


Such organization and leadership, together with a thorough 
knowledge of the art of war, its strategy and tactics, and the 
ability to direct and command all the forces of war, and for 
the peace training of the civilian elements of our forces for 
Defense, require the maintenance of a minimum force of highly 
trained officers and men who shall be competent as leaders 
in the event of the occurrence of a major emergency. This 
demands no swashbuckling, no saber-rattling—far from it; 
but it demands all and more than the Nation now has of 
regular forces, military schools, arsenals, laboratories, prov¬ 
ing grounds, training camps, etc., or the equivalent of these 
agencies, and all located well within the national territory. 
It demands more. It demands a healthy emulation of the 
military “Spirit of 76” in our youth, and the unqualified 
recognition of the fundamental truth that no free people can 
hope to remain free who can for long be fooled by the ad¬ 
vancement of such fallacious ideas as that a free people can 
possibly be too proud to fight when the Nation is in real 
peril. Such teaching is at variance with the Scriptural one 
that “Pride goeth before a fall,” and if maintained would 
soon undermine that high patriotism so essential to national 
pride and would justly make us the laughing-stock of the virile 
world. 

Conclusion .—The primary purposes of preparedness for Na¬ 
tional Defense, concretely expressed, are: 

1. To render attack on this Nation unlikely to occur, under 
any provocation, through the extreme improbability of 
success by any attacking power, due to our evident 
strength and readiness in defense; and 

2. In event of actual attack, to insure the covering of our 
coasts and frontiers by First Line troops where essential, 
until our Second Line forces, the units of which are 
already authorized, partly officered, and capable of quick 
mobilization and ready expansion, can be mobilized, ex¬ 
panded and sufficiently trained to warrant their active 
participation in a successful defense. 

Other than the use by States of their National Guard as a 
police force there is absolutely no need for other military 
forces than those thus required for our defense. 


W E hold the conviction that the public inter¬ 
est in National Defense, so essential to its 
growth and development, is real, and that silence 
over matters of defense is the result of over-con¬ 
fidence and misunderstanding rather than apathy; 
and we believe that the changing character of our 
population and the complexity of modern life, with 
its diverting economic, social, and political ques¬ 
tions, render necessary frequent reiteration of the 
vital importance of National Defense .”—Extract 
from Memorandum, January 30, 1923, to the Chi¬ 
cago Association of Commerce. 


29 


CHAPTER IV. 


National Defense—Its Essentials 

T HE essentials of National Defense are: 

Finance; 

Industry; 

Manpower, 

and the complete organization of all three. Their efficient em¬ 
ployment demands the existence of suitable plans, complete in 
all essential detail, and the will and authority to put the 
plans in force in event of need. There is further demanded 
trained and competent leadership. 

The preparation of plans for the employment of the resources 
of the Nation in its defense are by law made the duty of the 
General Staff. Under the National Defense Act of 1920 ample 
authority is given the President to carry the provisions of the 
law into effect, and it may be assumed that the work of com¬ 
pleting all essential plans has made due progress. While the 
authority is ample, as stated, there are two obstacles to the ac¬ 
complishment of all defense plans, viz.: 

1. A shortage in trained personnel; and 
2. Dependence on annual appropriations, the amounts of 
which have been entirely insufficient and too problematical. A 
defense plan worth making and adopting is worth carrying 
out. Piecemeal or halfway action defeats the success of the 
best plan. 

Finance. —The law makes no provisions for plans regard¬ 
ing finance for purposes of National Defense. The reasons 
for this are apparent. Under our financial and banking sys¬ 
tem finance is highly centralized and the Secretary of the 
Treasury instantly senses any change which portends danger. 
At the first threat against the Nation reserves could be con¬ 
served or increased and business duly warned through financial 
agencies, i. e ., by the banks. The proof of readiness lies in 
the excellent functioning of our banking system throughout the 


30 


National Defense—Its Essentials 


31 


late war, and through the perhaps even more severe test of 
post-war inflation and the rapidly succeeding deflation which 
was so destructive of values. Through all this the banks car¬ 
ried on successfully—not without strain, but with avoidance 
of panic. That the new banking system, in operation for only 
ten years when the storm of war broke over Europe, should 
have so successfully met war requirements is most gratifying 
to the Nation, and most complimentary to the framers of the 
banking laws and to the financiers and bankers (for not all 
bankers may be called financiers) who carried out the actual 
operations. 

Industry. —The second named essential of National De¬ 
fense is also well centralized, though less highly so than finance. 
The munitions for defense differing so widely from the peace 
products of manufacture (though in war the manufacture of 
vast quantities of peace products is required, unchanged), it 
becomes necessary to know the equipment, adaptability, and 
capacity of all important manufacturing plants in order 
promptly to change production where needed, minimize waste, 
and insure ample supply and the smooth and uninterrupted 
flow of defense supplies of every class and kind. This requires 
a complete and careful inventory to be made of all important 
industries; the making and filing of plans and specifications 
for the manufacture of all required munitions other than ordi¬ 
nary commercial articles; the making of suitable provisions to 
insure the availability when needed of special machinery, tools, 
jigs, dies, gauges, etc., etc.; and the filing of all plans, inven¬ 
tories, and other essential information for manufacture and 
supply in a common center for their complete co-ordination, 
including proper supply of raw materials, power, and fuel (kinds 
and quantities) needed by all plants in operation; for appor¬ 
tionment of required personnel; assignment of rail, water, 
or other transportation needed, and when needed; storage, etc. 

Under the National Defense Act of 1920 the Assistant Sec¬ 
retary of War is by lav/ charged with all procurement of sup¬ 
plies. Decentralization of the supervision of procurement is 
effected through the appointment in large centers like New 
York, Chicago, St. Louis, etc., of responsible civilian heads, 
the selection of the individual in each case being governed 


32 


Why Defend the Nation? 


by his ability, experience, and proved fitness to take charge 
of vast manufacturing and supply problems and operations; 
and this official, assisted usually by members of an Advisory 
Board (the members of which will ordinarily be selected and 
appointed by himself), will, in the event of a major emergency, 
co-ordinate and distribute the entire production in his district 
of all supplies of the class with which he is charged, on quan¬ 
tity and destination calls from the central office. 

Manpower. —The third essential of National Defense is 
divided primarily as follows: 

First Line ,—Combat and supply units of the Regular Army 
and the National Guard. These are regularly maintained, 
are fully equipped and trained, and can be quickly mobilized 
at any designated points by the issuance of the necessary orders. 
Before the National Guard can be called into the Federal 
service the existence of a national emergency must have been 
duly declared by Congress. On proper declaration of the 
existence of such an emergency the National Guard is avail¬ 
able for duty beyond the limits of its own State, wherever 
ordered by the President. 

Second Line .—The Reserves. These units are more or less 
completely organized on paper, are wholly or in part officered 
and have some additional personnel of non-commissioned officers 
in the more important grades. All of the personnel enrolled 
can be immediately mobilized, on the declaration by Congress 
of the existence of a major emergency, at local or other desig¬ 
nated centers, for the receiving, clothing, equipping, and train¬ 
ing of the existing and all additional personnel required and 
assigned for the completion of the units to full war strength. 

Practically all of the officers of the Reserve Corps have had 
war experience and training and many are receiving additional 
training at the summer training camps, at designated posts or 
headquarters, and through the pursuing of correspondence 
courses in training in the essential duties of their arm or branch, 
for their grade. This corps is recruited, as are the National 
Guard and the Regular Army, by officers appointed from the 
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which is the name given 
to the aggregate of all the students receiving military instruc¬ 
tion at our universities, colleges, and certain designated schools, 


National Defense—Its Essentials 


33 


and from men who have taken the necessary prescribed courses 
of military instruction offered at the Civilian Military Training 
Camps, of which there is at present one held each summer in 
each of the nine corps areas into which the whole of the United 
States is divided. Thus a flow of trained officers is provided 
to replace losses due to age, the limitation on time imposed 
by business or other duties, etc. 

Additional manpower over that required above is avail¬ 
able for expansion of the First and Second Lines of Defense; 
for industry, agriculture, transportation, and for all other 
National Defense needs. The organization now being effected 
of the country's manpower holds a great advantage over the 
conditions which existed at the outbreak of war in 1917. The 
Nation then stood like a giant muscle-bound. Its potential 
powers in men and industry were untrained and unharnessed 
for defense, were without even a semblance of the necessary 
organization, and for a time the Nation stood all but helpless 
in defense. Very hasty and wholly unsatisfactory methods were 
of necessity resorted to for the selection and training of officers 
before the organization of our units for defense could even 
begin. But for the fact that our allies were holding the 
common enemy on a distant front, this loss in time and ad¬ 
vantage would have spelled complete disaster. As it resulted, 
it spelled loss and waste in lives and property beyond all 
reckoning. The National Defense Act of 1920 brought a dis¬ 
tinct feeling of relief to America in that for the first time in 
our whole national existence a real plan for the National 
Defense was made law, providing for the organization in peace 
time of our manpower and industry against our need in any 
future emergency. This Act is an excellent law and if and 
when wholly carried out and in force will be fair insurance 
in event of another emergency against any recurrence of the 
lamentable confusion and waste of 1917. 

The following are a few of the excellent features of the 
Plan for Defense as carried in the National Defense Act of 
1920: 

1. It employs all the essential resources of the Nation for 
its defense, rather than only a part. 

2. It is the cheapest in cost of all the plans ever considered 
that will adequately secure our defense. 


34 


Why Defend the Nation? 


3. It permits our maintaining a small Regular Army of 
only 150,000 men in time of peace, while still insuring effi¬ 
ciency of the National Defense. The Regular Army garrisons 
the over-seas possessions, guards the coast where necessary, 
and furnishes the overhead for all training of the National 
Guard and the Organized Reserves. 

4. It insures to the Nation the ability to promptly mobilize 
finance, industry and manpower—the three essential elements 
of defense. 

5. It utilizes the National Guard as a part of the first line 
of defense, thus making full use of all pre-existent military 
organization and training. 

6. The Organized Reserves, provided as one component of 
the Army of the United States, serves as an immense reservoir 
in which, in the event of war, our manpower can be quickly 
organized and trained for its various tasks as a second line 
of defense. This is a very great advantage over our position 
in 1917. 

7. The Officers’ Reserve Corps, composed as it is of citizen- 
soldiers, forms an essential link between the civil and the 
purely military which will go far toward removing distrust, 
promoting understanding, imparting confidence, and assuring 
wide dissemination of the ideals of America and of the needs 
of National Defense among the youth of the country and all 
uninformed elements of our population. 



ONDLY do we hope—fervently do we 


Jl pray—that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it con¬ 
tinue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s 
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil 
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn 
with the lash shall be paid by another drawn by 
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, 
so still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ 

“With malice toward none; with charity for 
all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us 
to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work 
we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care 
for him who shall have borne the battle, and for 
his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may 
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among 
ourselves and with all nations .”—From Lincoln s 
Second Inaugural Address . 


35 


CHAPTER V. 


Peace and Pacifism 


T HE pacifist would have the world believe that peace, like 
a ripe apple hanging low, can be plucked by any passerby 
who desires delectable fruit. But one of analytical mind who 
will exercise it mildly will soon convince himself otherwise. 

Peace, like character, is the effect gained by right living. 
Peace is national character, sought always by nations who 
hold right above wrong, and is never lightly relinquished even 
when the Hun is knocking down the door. And then, as 
soon as the intruder is evicted, properly chastised, and the fray 
terminated, there is the desire, due to this national character, 
to immediately clean house, tidy up the ruins of war, and 
resume with the least possible delay those conditions of life 
which are commended by the Creator and loved by all right- 
thinking men and women. 

Peace and war are opposites; when one enters, the other 
departs. Both are direct effects of adopted lines of conduct, 
productive of definite and sure but opposite results. Hon¬ 
orable dealings; adherence to high ideals of freedom, liberty, 
justice, and truth; Christianity, and respect for the rights of 
others will produce and maintain peace, just as aggrandize¬ 
ment, unfairness in commerce, lack of principle, greed, untruth, 
falsity, and disrespect for the progress and teachings of a 
Christian civilization will as surely produce the effect called 
war. 

In peace as in war, the essential factor, basically unchanged 
since the beginning of time, is man. The emotion, the senti¬ 
ment, the spirit of man is what determines the character of 
every nation, and the same qualities determine progress 
toward peace or war. 

Civilization, employing a thin veneer, dresses man so that 
his savage and bestial instincts are indiscernible; but touch 
a sore spot—cut through the veneer—and like an enraged 
lion the primitive being emerges, lashed to a fury. Man’s 


36 


Peace and Pacifism 


37 


innate passions remain unchanged. They are roused by the 
same causes that have always roused them, and they a,re soothed 
by the same anodynes. 

Man always was, is now, and probably ever will be largely 
the creature of his environment. With his body clothed 
and his stomach filled, given a soft bed and lulled by sweet 
music, man is a docile brute. Plunge him into adversity, and 
immediately discontent, dissatisfaction, resentment, anger, even 
viciousness, rise in him, in degree dependent on his training 
and education; but even these are not long proof in average 
man against those innate forces with which Nature has en¬ 
dowed him. Many a Christian martyr has died on the cross; 
but for every one who has so died there have been dozens, scores, 
hundreds—aye, thousands—in the jeering, unbelieving throngs 
who were guilty of sharing in the atrocity. Martyrs and mur¬ 
derers, all were men in the image of the Creator, and each 
was actuated and governed by his own strongest instincts. In 
the few, brute instincts had yielded to the hope of Christianity; 
but in the many the course of action was dictated solely by 
primitive instincts. It does not make a pretty picture, but it 
is not a pretty subject, and no picture is good which does not 
portray the truth. 

Of all the factors useful in bringing primitive man to curb 
or control his instincts, the most compelling are Christianity 
and fear. And fear, too, of physical violence legally visited 
upon his person. Just as brutality is a primitive instinct in man, 
so is fear. One is a counter for the other. Fear is therefore 
the resort of law in controlling its criminal classes, in whom 
sentiment has little hold. 

Various forms and degrees of physical punishment for crime 
are of necessity employed, from short restraint of personal 
liberty to imprisonment for the entire period of natural life, 
and up to the maximum penalty that can be imposed, that of 
forfeiture of life itself. This last punishment is never adjudged 
except for the willful taking of human life or of that which is 
esteemed even more precious. 

In civilization man rises to great heights, and as surely 
sinks to bottomless depths. Every community has its schools 
and churches, marks of civilization and of the good instincts 


38 


Why Defend the Nation? 


in man; and all but a few have their jails, their criminal 
courts, their houses of correction, and their segregated unde¬ 
sirable classes—segregated because these persons shun the 
haunts of real men, even as they themselves are shunned. In 
darkness do they live and find their solace. As the churches 
and schools and other evidence of right instincts are positive 
signs of the good that is in man, cheering our minds and our 
hearts and filling us with hope for the future, so the jails, 
courts, etc., are evidence of the world’s recognition of the in¬ 
herence of the primitive instincts and passions and the uncer¬ 
tainty of their yielding to any “gentling” process yet known 
to Christian teaching. 

Man’s primitive instincts being what they are, there will 
always be good men and bad men wherever men are con¬ 
gregated in numbers, as surely as there have always been both 
classes since the days of Cain and Abel. 

Education and training serve to accentuate both the good 
and the evil in men—the good becoming better and the evil 
often degeneracy. Some of the greatest scoundrels the world 
has ever known have been lettered men and women. This fact 
negatives any hope that education alone can suffice to remove 
crime, much as it unquestionably lessens it. Sentiment and 
fear are far more potent agents, and teachings of Christianity 
often effect what all else combined cannot accomplish. Surgery 
is of increasing application in the cure of crime; but it is 
feared that the only surgery effective with the majority of 
hardened criminals would be little short of decapitation. 

If the percentage of our population that is criminal is not 
alarming, what would it become were we to add the percent¬ 
age figures covering the really undesirable citizens? Take these 
in the sense of persons filled with unfairness, dishonesty, un¬ 
truthfulness, lying and deceitfulness—terms applicable to many 
rather than to a few. And these persons—these men and 
women, all have voice in the affairs of the Nation, even as 
you and I. In all nations they are the factors of unrest, 
provocative of disturbance, friction and lawlessness, if not 
legally guilty of crime. 

The pacifist blindly demands a condition which can only re¬ 
sult through difficult , sustained , and highly intelligent effort. 


Peace and Pacifism 


39 


Unwilling to pay the price, he nevertheless demands the highest 
quality of goods. This is pure effrontery. In business, he 
would be shown the door, and in politics he should be conducted 
to a well marked exit from the national stage. 

The pacifist starts wrong, and stubbornly or ignorantly stays 
wrong. We prefer to believe the latter. If he justified the defi¬ 
nition given of him by Webster it would be one thing; but he 
states his wishes and desires as a postulate, and therein he is 
wrong. No more can the Nation secure the effect called peace 
without righteousness in the people than we can stay the floods 
of the lower Mississippi when all of its great tributaries pour 
into it the cumulative floods of those vast regions to the north 
which stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. To effect 
this we must stay the rainfall or the melting of the winter 
snows, or find means to turn the tributary waters aside, to flow 
elsewhere. And to insure peace we must find means to better 
control the passions and inherent nature of man and to soften 
their manifestations. We have the means to accomplish this, in 
education and Christianity; but these are not being sufficiently 
or always intelligently employed. As stated above, education, 
sentiment, Christianity, and fear play the leading roles in shap¬ 
ing the lives of men and the destinies of nations. Education 
provides the essential “know how” to success; sentiment and 
religion inspire men and cause selection and elimination of 
methods and acts; fear controls abuse. Education is the motor; 
sentiment and Christianity the selective gear lever; and fear is 
the brake. With such equipment we should welcome the signal 
“full speed ahead!” 

Experience teaches that even minor desirable changes in long 
established customs demand heroic effort to bring those changes 
about. The twelve-hour working day in the steel industries is 
a recent example of the tenacity of established practice, as its 
final relinquishment was a marked proof of the power dormant 
in public opinion. Gain its favorable expression, and the world 
is yours—but be sure you champion a worthy cause. 

The English are noted for declining the most innocent pro¬ 
posals simply because “it isn’t done;” and that reason, more 
often than otherwise, is the best that could possibly be given, 
for it denotes a respect for precedent which is the direct result 
of deep-seated regard for established law and institutions. 


40 


Why Defend the Nation? 


The peace-at-all-costs advocate is invariably of narrow mind. 
We prefer that simple statement of truth to any vilification of 
his motives. Besides being more dignified, it will be more certain 
to get home. In former days many a man, fond of over-imbib¬ 
ing and adamant to the accusation that he was wicked, was 
brought up standing when some close friend brutally told him 
that he was a fool; that no really good business man would 
willfully suffer himself to be incapacitated during business 
hours. So long as he thought people looked upon him as more 
or less of a devil he took a fiendish glee in his inebriety and his 
ability to shock sensitive natures; but with even that doubtful 
regard shattered, and liimself classed merely as lacking in brains, 
there remained to his vanity no solace in drunkenness. 

If peace-at-all-costs were ever a ruling motive for a nation, 
it would be a plain invitation to diplomacy the world over to 
take advantage. Like a sign of “Help yourself” it would upset 
competitive effort and would ruin business and commerce in- 
stanter, for all would rush to share in the spoils just as miners 
rush to newly discovered gold diggings of reputed richness. It 
has been well said that “no man is so innocently employed as the 
man who is busy at legitimately making money.” For he is 
constantly faced with problems the solution of which develops 
and improves his brain and his will-power, and he is meanwhile 
assisting in providing employment for others who are in need 
of work. And employment—honest, lucrative toil—is the abso¬ 
lute essential to contentment among the masses of the people. 
Through it a man provides for himself and for those dependent 
upon him, develops independence and personal pride, and learns 
to regard the rights and opinions of others. 

The following extracts from a speech delivered by the Rev. 
John W. Day, pastor of the Church of the Messiah, St. Louis, 
commend themselves to all Americans who have the good of the 
Nation at heart: 

“Militarism is exercise of war for its own sake or for unworthy 
ends; pacifism is the exercise of peace in disregard of its worth.” 

“Two strong tendencies exist which are likely to be misunderstood; 
one is the revulsion against war, and the other is the wish to forget 
the four years of the Great War. That revulsion is natural; it 
arises from the memory of terrible things and the wish not to go 
through them again, and it is shared by people who fought as well 
as by the people who did not. No one hates war more than those who 


Peace and Pacifism 


41 


know most about it. The wish to forget the past is shared also by 
all alike. What is dangerous in those tendencies is that thinking 
shall be confused and dreams cherished which not only cannot be 
realized, but will mislead, delude, and defeat efforts to establish peace. 
The revulsion against war will have no good effect unless it is some¬ 
thing clearer than mere revulsion.” 

“Now is the time to state things as they are. War can never be 
abolished by objecting to it, by requesting the abolition, or by resolu¬ 
tions of any body or associates of bodies whatever. We might as 
well pass resolutions to abolish fire and flood and call on nations to 
join in doing away with them. War, like fire and floods, is not a cause, 
but an effect. Its likelihood can only be lessened when its causes are 
lessened. Adequate preparation against those causes is not itself a 
cause, but a prevention; not a provocation, but a restraint.” 

“The causes of war are far back in the dispositions and desires of 
human nature. It must be restrained there if your services and sacri¬ 
fices are never again to be required.” 

“So, also, peace is not a cause, but an effect. It exists where it is 
produced. It does not exist in quiescence; it will not be produced 
merely by being declared. * * * It is the effect of righteousness 

and can never continue where righteousness is disregarded or vio¬ 
lated.” 

“We want the man whom we can trust 
To lead us where Thy purpose leads; 

Who dares not lie, but dares be just— 

Give us the dangerous man of deeds.” 

So it is clear that we can only have peace if we earn it by 
righteous living; and even then we may be denied it because 
of our interests being bound up with those of other nations, 
less righteous, who may decide on war. Any belief that the 
conditions of peace , as against those called war, are a free choice 
regardless of all else and based merely on the wishes of the 
majority at any moment, is unwarranted and mistaken. 

Peace is a treasure, a sparkling jewel which comes to us only 
as a deserved reward. Take heed, then, what political issues we 
espouse, what economic courses we pursue, and that our Christ¬ 
ian purposes be clear and well defined. Our faith being well 
founded; our dealings with the world and with each other 
highly honorable; our devotion to duty a sacred ideal; generous 
to the poor and needy; opposed to greed and selfishness, and 
filled with a love for truth and justice, our consciences will be 
clear and we shall be worthy of that peace we so desire. But 
should the enemy come upon us in the darkness of night, let us 


42 


Why Defend the Nation? 


know that our doors are securely bolted, that there is strength 
in our good right arm, that our brains are neither muddled nor 
weak, and that the will to maintain the right and to secure to 
posterity the full heritage which has been given through the 
blood shed by our sires is clear, determined, and purposeful, to 
the end that this Nation shall forever endure. 

Emerson said that “the true test of its civilization is the kind 
of a man a country turns out.” What the efficiency and right¬ 
eousness of our breed has established let the breed maintain! 


i i T7 V OUR SCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought 

X 1 forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty 
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can 
long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. 
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final 
resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation 
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should 
do this. 

“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot con¬ 
secrate—we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living 
and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our 
poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor 
long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what 
they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have 
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedi¬ 
cated to the great task remaining before us—that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause here for 
which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we 
highly resolve that these shall not have died in vain—that this 
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not 
perish from the earth.”— Lincolns Gettysburg Address, de¬ 
livered at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, Nov. 

19, 1863. 


43 


CHAPTER VI. 


The Organized Reserves 

U NDER the National Defense Act of 1920, which estab¬ 
lishes a Plan for Defense, the land forces of the Nation 
are collectively termed “The Army of the United States. ,, The 
successive Lines for Defense are as follows: 

First Line— 

a. The Regular Army. 

b. The National Guard of all the States. 

Second Line— 

c. The Organized Reserves. 

Inasmuch as the two components of the First Line aggregate 
only about three hundred thousand men, while in a modern war 
we would need to mobilize two millions immediately on decla¬ 
ration of war, it is apparent that the Second Line is our main 
dependence for defense. The First Line must hold the enemy 
at the sea coast or on the frontier and win time for the mobiliz¬ 
ing and training of the Second Line, and means must be found 
and employed to shorten this period to a minimum. The weak¬ 
ness of the First Line demands this. 

The Organized Reserves are trained volunteers. They are 
the volunteers of old, only they wisely prefer to do their volun¬ 
teering in advance of any emergency, so that they can benefit 
by receiving training and thus measurably fit themselves for 
their jobs. A football or other athletic team that is not well 
trained has a sorry chance to win; and an army that is not 
trained has no chance whatever against an equally strong army 
that is trained. 

Home-owned knowledge of hygiene and of simple remedies 
doesn’t create illness, or induce surgical operations, but improves 
the general health and saves doctor bills; and a little common 
sense preparation against national dangers doesn’t make our 
people “militaristic,” or create war. As shown in the preceding 
chapter, war is the result of somebody’s unrighteousness. 


44 


The Organized Reserves 


45 


We trained and commissioned about 200,000 officers in the 
World War. Twelve thousand are in the Regular Army. 
Some thousands are in the National Guard of the forty-eight 
States. Some seventy thousand have enrolled and accepted 
commissions in the Organized Reserves. The remaining hun¬ 
dred thousand includes those who died or were killed or in¬ 
capacitated, and men who are now in civil life, without military 
affiliation. 

The officers for the Reserve are obtained by examining and 
recommissioning officers of the World War who apply; and by 
the examination and appointment of applicants from among the 
enlisted men of that war and of men from civil life who meet 
the requirements. A source for obtaining trained officers lies in 
the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, the name collectively 
given to the students of educational institutions who acquire 
military training during their courses, under Regular Army 
officers regularly detailed as instructors. Another source lies 
in the graduates of the courses of training prescribed for civil¬ 
ians who take the required courses in the Civilian Military 
Training Camps, of which there is one established for a month 
each summer in each of the nine corps areas into which the 
whole of the United States is divided. 

While the organization of the Reserves is actual and real so 
far as completed, it is contemplated to enroll and assign to units 
of this force only the full complement of officers and a per¬ 
centage of the more essential non-commissioned officers. To fill 
up the ranks seems unnecessary, for the officers and the non¬ 
commissioned officers require the most training and are there¬ 
fore more difficult to secure on the outbreak of war. With of¬ 
ficers ready assigned and more or less completely trained, these 
can be immediately ordered to a designated mobilization camp 
and can there receive, equip, and train the men enlisted or 
drafted to complete the full complement of their units. 

The force called for on paper for both lines is six field 
armies, the majority of which will be of the organized re¬ 
serves. All of the divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, 
companies, etc.; staff organizations; supply and transport, etc., 
are provided for, including the Corps and Army troops and G. 
H. Q. Reserves. Officers are everywhere assigned to appropri- 


46 


Why Defend the Nation ? 


ate units according to grade and to arm or branch of service. 
So there are infantry, cavalry, artillery, air service, chemical 
warfare service, signal, ordnance and quartermaster officers, 
adjutants, inspectors, judge advocates, etc., etc., down to the 
last unit. In addition there are a large number of officers hold¬ 
ing what are called General and Branch assignments. The 
former will in event of war be employed directly under orders 
from the War Department on all kinds and classes of special 
and detached service, the need here being for a very large num¬ 
ber of officers of various grades and qualifications; while the 
latter will be similarly employed directly under the orders of 
the chiefs of branches to which assigned. This provision for 
extra officers avoids any necessity of denuding the combat units 
of officers, and insures a surplus of trained officers to be drawn 
on in emergency, as to make up losses or to organize additional 
units. 

In 1917 we were unable to immediately mobilize men to fill 
up the divisions, there being no officers available to receive, 
equip, and train them. It was necessary to first enroll, train, 
commission, and assign officers from raw material; and then the 
officers so made available were without war experience and of 
exceedingly limited training. If your own boy is going out to 
fight at his country’s call, he is entitled to leaders who know 
their business and who can instruct him, and who can really 
command whether in camp, in transport, or in battle. With the 
old system in vogue before the recent war, this was impossible. 
Now, if the present laws can be fully carried out, the boy can 
be sure of proper instruction and training before he actually 
meets the enemy. 

Another advantage is that during peace time officers can be 
tested and assigned according to fitness and qualification. In 
the hurry and confusion of assignment after war is declared, a 
jeweler might find himself in a heavy bridge train of an en¬ 
gineer unit, and an automobile salesman in the signal corps; 
a lawyer who has no knowledge of horses other than seeing 
these on a Sunday in the parks might find himself in the 
cavalry, while a farmer, accustomed to horses all his life, might 
be assigned to a balloon unit. Thus was fitness sacrificed and 
time lost. The wisdom of the present plan for avoiding such 


The Organized Reserves 


47 


misfits by the elimination of the haphazard methods which 
brought them about needs no argument. 

The present Plan of Defense is so sensible and so eminently 
practical that it appeals to all who are familiar with the dif¬ 
ficulties of mobilization, organization, and training at the out¬ 
break of war. 

A further reason why it is not contemplated to assign the 
complement of enlisted men to units in advance of an actual 
emergency is that it not only seems unnecessary as above stated, 
but the enrollment of two millions of men would seriously in¬ 
terfere with industry and agriculture, and would further re¬ 
quire a very greatly increased overhead in additional personnel 
and expense for the Regular Army to enable it to handle the 
added details; and unless training could be imparted to the man, 
and maintained, there would be no real advantage in the pre¬ 
enrollment. Such training if given would vastly increase the 
annual appropriations necessary, running up military costs when 
it is the universal desire that these be kept as low as consistent 
with assured safety in defense. With trained officers available, 
and with Congress able to quickly authorize the draft, men can 
be rapidly enrolled, the physically unfit eliminated or assigned 
to light duties for which they are qualified, and all who are ac¬ 
cepted for service rapidy trained. Such is the medium ground 
which appeals alike to officers, members of Congress, Admin¬ 
istration leaders, and all other informed persons; and there can 
be no question of the soundness of the reasoning. 

Any large body of selected men that is organized and directly 
affiliated with government is a strong factor for good govern¬ 
ment. Identification with any branch of government places it 
in sympathy with all of the government. For many reasons 
the Officers’ Reserve Corps of the Organized Reserves (in main 
of the American Legion), physically fit, and that fact estab¬ 
lished by medical examination prior to recommission, and again 
sworn to uphold the Nation, is the strongest single factor in 
this country for assurance of future good government. Its 
members are many times more numerous than those of the other 
components of the Army, and they are all in position to exercise 
the rights of franchise, which many of the others cannot. Na¬ 
tion-wide, built up from proved and virile men in trade, com- 


48 


Why Defend the Nation? 


merce, business, and the professions, and the majority with real 
experience in war, it is the strongest, most democratic, the 
widest and greatest real “He-Man Club” in America or in the 
world today. In peace as in war, it is a tremendous power 
for good. 

Think what they are and where they came from—all that 
they represent! When this Nation was forced into war against 
Germany and the Central European powers, the pick of the 
country volunteered and entered the training camps. These 
men were sound of body—proved so by thorough medical ex¬ 
aminations—strong of heart, and what is perhaps most impor¬ 
tant of all, sound in their ideas of the fundamental needs of 
this Nation. They offered all and many paid it. Others are 
living who are broken mentally or physically from the hell gone 
through of bullet and bayonet, gas and shell, submarine and 
bomb, from physical exposure to the elements and physical and 
mental strains long sustained. For these the Nation has the 
tenderest regard, the utmost gratefulness, as it has for all who 
thus served; and it demands that the ultimate be done toward 
their restoration to health and for their physical comfort. It 
will watch the accomplishment of these its mandates with most 
critical and jealous eyes. And the Administration in power is 
perhaps more critical, more demanding even than the body 
politic; and in this lies assurance and mental comfort. 

The large numbers incapacitated greatly reduced the ap¬ 
proximate 200,000 of commissioned officers. From all those 
remaining some seventy thousand, after another severe physical 
examination to prove continued fitness, have offered themselves 
to their country, in response to the country’s fretful call that it 
be not left wholly defenseless. Little did it offer—the bare 
honor of the old commission so gloriously held. Asking that 
those who enroll stand ready to serve should war ever be forced 
upon us, whether required at home, on the icy tundra of the 
North, under the scorching rays of. the tropical sun or across 
the seas, it yet limits the schooling of these splendid men—the 
guarantors of the Nation—to a mere fifteen days per year to 
fit them for their arduous task. When we consider the demand, 
and the terms imposed—those of us who know from long ex¬ 
perience just what those demands may mean—no wonder we 


The Organized Reserves 


49 


all but despair. Well indeed is it for America that these 
splendid civilian soldiers are strong of heart and light of spirit. 
They need all they possess of both. Given fifteen days’ train¬ 
ing per year only, and where would we be for doctors, carpen¬ 
ters, dentists, plumbers, lawyers, farmers, bakers, bankers ? 
Why, that’s easy, for America simply would not, could not, be 
America—our America! And yet for war, admittedly the most 
difficult art and science known to all mankind, in its demands 
running the whole gamut of business, scientific and professional 
knowledge, with much additional learning required that is 
purely military (tactical, strategical, command, supply, etc., 
etc.)—to acquire all this needful knowledge of the essentials of 
war but fifteen days of annual training is authorized! 

But that is not all—the facts are worse still. The plans 
authorized by law are dependent— 

1. Upon a sufficiency of Regular Army personnel to super¬ 
vise and impart training. The numbers of that personnel were 
recently reduced to a figure which forbids, absolutely, fulfill¬ 
ment of the needs of training. 

2. On the fact that all plans are contingent on annual ap¬ 
propriations which to date have been wholly insufficient, and 
highly problematical until near the annual training period, thus 
cutting short the time for planning the best use of the limited 
appropriations finally available. 

The funds for training are so inadequate that in one corps 
area, having over 8,000 Reserve officers, about one in eleven 
could be sent to the summer training camp. A few attended 
absolutely at their own personal expense, so highly did they 
regard the privilege. There are not many who can afford this, 
nor should it be necessary. 

Counting out of the fifteen-day training period the two 
Sundays included therein and allowing one day travel to camp, 
and the same for return to their homes, a total of four days 
are lost from the fifteen, reducing this to eleven days. Since 
the appropriations, as shown, permit only about one out of 
eleven Reserve officers to attend the annual camp, it is apparent 
that instead of fifteen days’ annual training the officers will get 
but one period of eleven days of training in eleven years! 


50 


Why Defend the Nation? 


Does the country know all this? It probably does—at least 
somebody knows something of each of the many features of the 
law, and of the various workings thereunder, including the 
skimpiness of the appropriations. But there is no question but 
that the country does not realize the inexpediency and unwis¬ 
dom of the short-sighted course that is being run. 

National Defense is merely national insurance. Admittedly, 
the recent expenses of the government were excessive and had 
to be reduced. But no less admittedly, wisdom demands that 
they be reduced in accordance with sound business principles 
and practice. 

Now when individuals or partnerships or corporations reduce 
expenses, they don't, as a part measure, cut their insurance 
below the net value of their inventories. Yet Congress, in 
reducing expenses, led (not followed) a noted movie comedian 
who has grown more or less famous through scenes which 
appear under the caption of “Safety Last.” And that is the 
play we are nationally staging today, and which we have been 
staging from the day the demobilization of our World War 
forces was completed. 

How does it strike you, neighbor ? Are you in favor of con¬ 
tinuing the act? Or will you join in a popular demand that 
the old actors either stage a better play or that they be dis¬ 
charged and more up-to-requirement-political-business-military- 
scientific artists replace them in a new scene? 

If the country wants protection it can have it, whether it be 
a high tariff against manufactured imports, a quarantine against 
disease, a special branch of service to prevent the counterfeiting 
of its currency, or an effective insurance against invasion and 
attack. And if any of these be determined upon by the people 
as necessary to the country, then the people should assure them¬ 
selves that their wishes are carried out. 

Our immediate needs are those of authorization so far as con¬ 
cerns this question of National Defense; in other words, our 
present needs can be entirely met by legislative action. That 
action taken, the army from top to bottom, rank and file, can 
be trusted to quickly complete all necessary details and start 
efficiency rolling; and like the snow ball of our boyhood, rolled 


The Organized Reserves 


51 


by us with all of the neighbors’ boys, that efficiency will grow 
and grow as the effort continues, until it reaches the point 
where the whole country, which by then will all be in on the 
rolling, will be completely reassured, and satisfied that the Na¬ 
tion is at last safe. 


UTN SOME of our colleges and universities there 
1 is a good deal of false teaching. Professors 
in many instances spread discontent among the stu¬ 
dents. The things that are good and essential to 
patriotism are neglected, and existing ills in po¬ 
litical and economic conditions are magnified. 
Those who would tear down are much more diligent 
than those who support our form of government.”— 
Extract from an address delivered before the Amer¬ 
ican Bar Association at Minneapolis , Aug. 29, 1923, 
by Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court 
Fierce Butler. 


52 


CHAPTER VII. 


The Dent in Our Armor 

S EDUCATION is the lifeblood of the Republic, so it is 



JT\ the armor. Education in citizenship—basic and funda¬ 
mental education—is an absolute necessity if the Republic is to 
endure. Our ability to meet and solve the great questions 
which have been vital in our development as a free nation has 
rested squarely on the sound basic training of the entire body 
politic. Under the conditions of the past the “little red school- 
house” sufficed; but it suffices no longer. Our schools are over¬ 
crowded, the instruction given is often inefficient, and there is 
no compelling demand that the needs of our educational system 
be satisfied. 

The weakest point, and the most dangerous, in our education 
of today, lies in the loss to daily view of those high ideals and 
traditions which gave the Nation birth. The ill effects from 
this loss, already marked, will soon grow alarming unless effec¬ 
tive measures be taken to stop it. But what is everyone’s busi¬ 
ness is no one’s business, and the existing dangerous conditions 
mentioned are no exception to the rule. 

Our educational means lie in three great agencies—the 
teachers, the preachers, and the press, and in their offshoots. 
No one of these factors devotes itself with sufficiently sustained 
seriousness and energy to the subject of good Americanism. Yet 
nothing so needs to be taught—nothing is so vital to the life 
of the Republic. Let him who doubts take heed of the com¬ 
munistic (socialistic) effort everywhere around us. Our very 
agencies of education, above enumerated, are themselves 
vitiated. To bridge the gap and teach and build Americanism 
demands the creation and sustained effort of some other suitable 
agency which shall, by its form of organization, be itself pro¬ 
tected from the inroads and encroachments of radicalism. 
Neither our political system nor our school system can be so 
protected; both are open and exposed. 


S3 


54 


Why Defend the Nation? 


A gap-bridging agency, supplementing our present educa¬ 
tional system, is essential to education in the vital fundamentals 
of good citizenship. It should constantly hold in public view 
the superior rights of our citizenry. It should tell what Amer¬ 
ica offers that other nations do not, and why it is possible for 
America to offer what she does to all. With better general 
understanding the false theories of radicalism would be steadily 
exposed to the merciless light of truth. We have no right to 
expect a crop of anything unless we prepare the ground and 
sow good seed, and this is as true of crops of good citizens as 
of crops of any agricultural or other product. But the seed 
now being most industriously sown is the seed of radicalism. It 
is high time for all good Americans to awake and to be up and 
doing. 

What we need is the America of the Constitution. We don’t 
want it ‘‘reformed.” We do want a clear, broad road of un¬ 
derstanding for growth and development. The bypaths and 
swamp-roads of illiteracy, infested with the sink-holes of radical¬ 
ism, are unsuited for our sweeping progress. As stated in a 
prior chapter, the Constitution was the result of over two 
centuries of purely American experience under sixty-nine sepa¬ 
rate forms of government either in actual operation or prepared 
and considered for use, from the first charter granted to Sir 
Walter Raleigh in 1584 down to and including the various 
forms of constitution prepared following the Declaration of 
Independence. Our Constitution has withstood the storm and 
trial of domestic and foreign strife. Under it the Nation leaped 
to prosperity and fame. Its past sufficiency is the best possible 
guaranty of its present and future adequacy. Absolute liberty 
and freedom such as it insures is the greatest boon a government 
can offer or secure for a people, and it is folly to even think 
that better can result from any effort of man. 

Preachers of sedition, of communism and socialism and all 
the other “isms,” have no place on the national rostrum. Our 
freedom and purity of American thought and speech should be 
free and exempt from all taint of those radical ideas and ex¬ 
pressions which are now so inimical to our whole welfare; 
which permeate and honeycomb much of Europe; which brought 
upon them and upon us the worst scourge of war the world 
has ever known; and which left much of the world in a mael- 


The Dent in Our Armor 


55 


strom of discontent, of destitution, of suffering, and of fear for 
the future. 

The Americas (North and South) alone of the nations of 
the world have neither near nor remote cause for fear. Be 
alert, yes; but that is inbred in us. The conquest of a mighty 
wilderness developed in our breed those traits of caution, inbred 
with courage, which fit the race for any emergency if we remain 
true to our ideals. So long as we hold to the course set by our 
forbears the Ship of State will sail smoothly and grandly down 
the eons of time until, gloriously alive, purified and sanctified 
by adherence to all that has made us as a people great, we cast 
anchor in the safe harbor of Eternity. 

Just how may we accomplish today’s and tomorrow’s needs 
in completing and rounding out the education of our children 
and of our brother Americans who are foreign-born and un¬ 
taught of America? 

We should organize and establish a Foundation, widely en¬ 
dowed by popular subscription and devoted to the single purpose 
of the preservation of American ideals, traditions, and free insti¬ 
tutions through a systematic, sustained, and nation-wide teach¬ 
ing of constitutional Americanism. A peculiarly favorable op¬ 
portunity offers now for the development of a great and con¬ 
tinuing agency for good government—one that should and must 
meet with the approval of every patriotic American, just as the 
Red Cross meets the universal approval of every charitably in¬ 
clined person and organization. This Foundation would be 
dignified, comprehensive, adequate for its purpose, and highly 
fitting. It would avoid all “entangling alliances.” 

It would create and employ new agencies, and would utilize 
to the utmost every existing agency, for impressing upon every 
mind—the high and the low, the rich and the poor without 
distinction—all that is traditionally ideal in free America. The 
agencies employed would in turn help to draw in and influence 
the activities of others. As the Foundation grew and expanded 
no desirable agency which could render assistance would be 
ignored. Unity of all patriotic effort would be its goal. 

Ample care would be taken to insure perpetual freedom from 
radicalism within the management, every step being carefully 


56 


Why Defend the Nation? 


planned. It would employ as its principal agent the printed 
word, as the surest avenue of approach—an avenue that is 
never closed. By day and by night, alike in noise and in silence, 
in the counting-room and in the cloister, on the sea and in our 
homes the exalted dignity of the printed English tongue inspires 
and sways the members of the race. It would print in all other 
needed languages, and distribute among our people where those 
languages prevail knowledge of the things that have made 
America the one desirable refuge for them, free from the dis¬ 
cord, oppression, tyranny, or the denial of opportunity which 
drove them from their home shores. It would seek and deserve 
the complete confidence of all parties, all religions, all races 
within America, by an unswerving devotion to right and justice 
in the execution of its great and single purpose. Its effort 
would be sustained, continuous, ever planting the truths of 
America. It would steadily supplement and widen its activities 
for the accomplishment of its purpose through all practicable 
and available avenues as these offered. 

This plan for a Foundation is simple. It is practical. Its 
very singleness of purpose and its wide scope and appeal will 
permit and command a unity of all patriotic effort such as no 
organization has ever enjoyed. Every agency now existent can 
be classed either as commercial or political; this means that each 
has opposition, and opposition limits usefulness and forbids the 
fullest success. The proposed Foundation, being single of pur¬ 
pose, would have a distinct advantage over any present patriotic 
agency and could work with all. It would thus meet the 
demands for which it is proposed; and those demands are most 
exacting. 

To become successful, any nation-wide plan for better Amer¬ 
icans must be free from religious, partisan, racial, or other 
issue than the single purpose for which organized. It must be 
in entire accord with the Constitution, for constitutional 
Americanism is the only 100 per cent Americanism. It must 
stand single and clear in its purpose to guard and preserve our 
ideals, traditions, and free institutions, and to make better 
Americans. It must be placed and securely held on the high 
plane of patriotism and loyalty. No other plan can command 
universal support. 


The Dent in Our Armor 


57 


The proposed plan meets these requirements. It Is non¬ 
religious, non-partisan, non-racial, and non-commercial. It 
provides for real building. It serves both personal and com¬ 
munity interests. It enters alike the home, the factory, and the 
farm. It is a plan employing positive methods as distinguished 
from plans designed merely to oppose manifest disloyalty or 
offensive or illegal radicalism. Such negative methods are 
strategically unsound, yet are not infrequently followed. Open 
manifestations such as those named must be dealt with by the 
legally constituted forces of law and order. 

The plan forever plants the truth of America; and that truth, 
judged by all our past, is so convincing that it may in itself, if 
thoroughly diffused, be trusted to baffle, disarm, and confound 
the enemies of good government. Nothing is more potent than 
truth. Despotisms have thrived only through its suppression. 

Effort under the plan is sustained and continuous. Just as 
need for this effort will grow with the population and with the 
increasing complexity of life, so the plan itself, once in operation 
and well rooted, will grow and ramify by a multitude of avail¬ 
able and ever-increasing avenues, like ivy climbing a wall. It 
is a forward-looking plan—a plan which, a century hence, 
should be as perfectly suited for its purpose as it is today. 

The numerous patriotic, fraternal, and other organizations 
which are not only desirous for good government and a sound 
National Defense, but are further desirous that radicalism and 
disloyalty be exposed, would welcome the work of this Founda¬ 
tion. Labor, management, capital, and all the forces and 
agencies of government would find it a real friend. 

The time is ripe. The need is urgent. Safer political con¬ 
ditions will go hand-in-hand with better understanding. A 
wide appeal should be made for “dollar endowments” from 
every patriotic man, woman, and child. Many considerable 
endowments, now made to less important and sometimes to 
seemingly trivial ends, should be won by this great American 
movement, for there are many millions of good Americans to 
whom “Country” is sacred and dear. 

But there must be no confusion of purpose—no hesitation as 
to methods—no departure from the singleness of purpose to 
which the plan proposes adherence and conversion. The very 


58 


Why Defend the Nation? 


lack of understanding of the fundamentals in our national life 
is the sole cause for this or any similar plan. Strictly adhered 
to, intelligently and vigorously executed and consistently main¬ 
tained, it will build so sound an appreciation of the value of 
American ideals and traditions that radicalism will be denied 
foothold. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Weaves in the Fabric 


3 THE whole is but the sum of all its parts, so a nation 



Jr\ is but the composite of its manhood and womanhood. The 
qualities of its people determine the character and kind of a 
nation; so it is apparent that any real and permanent improve¬ 
ment in the nation is contingent upon the prior improvement 
of large numbers of the individual members of the race. 

Just as the physical man depends upon training and exercise 
for healthy bodily growth and development, so does the mind 
depend upon teaching and example for its mental and moral 
growth. The proper evaluation of the attributes of mind, the 
adoption and cultivation of those which fit us as desirable mem¬ 
bers of society, and the shunning of others which can only drag 
down, lower, or destroy, constitute a duty to ourselves and 
to the race which in value and importance stands second to 
none. 

Phrenology tells us that the bump of ambition is located at 
the very tip-top of the human anatomy—symbolic of the up¬ 
ward direction of its urge. This ambition—this desire for 
advancement—marks a progressive people. It is inseparable 
from our race; and nowhere is opportunity for its highest 
satisfaction and realization so abundant as in our United States. 

Here class exists only as we make it. There are no sharply 
drawn lines—“Verboten” is nowhere written. We may, if we 
choose, dally along in life, and a complaisant world will still 
offer a smile and a pleasant word. But if we dally long we 
must mark flight after flight of industrious, determined, and 
more or less brilliant youngsters as they pass us, going upward 
on the trail to heights which we have never scaled; going ever 
upward, though now and then a broken one, come to grief, 
brings us company, but little cheer. The ones we remember 
and talk or think about in the long evenings or in the silent 
places are those who proved to be the very meteors of genius 
in their ambitious flight to recognized success and attainment. 


59 


60 


Why Defend the Nation? 


Ambition is the white man’s greatest national asset, as envy 
is his most virulent personal liability. Because of ambition all 
accomplishment and progress has directly resulted. In art, 
science, and business; in the professions; in our daily lives, at 
every turn of the road we are served by the fruits of ambition. 
In America ambition is the universal jewel, none the less pre¬ 
cious because of its very prevalence; and in this it stands unique. 
It is free alike to rich and poor—it is without money and with¬ 
out price. Nor are color lines drawn on its availability. In 
no other land does it beckon and call with such prodigality. 

It turns the mighty wheels of our government, for we have 
no hereditary administrators—no ruling class nor rulers. It 
ever urges science to greater endeavor; eases the daily burdens 
of all by the vast utilities it controls; unites all countries and 
bars isolation in the lightning’s flash; digs treasures and com¬ 
forts from far below the surface of the earth; distances the 
birds and the fishes in their own elements; carries the blessings 
of music and literature and art into even the lowliest homes; 
visualizes to all the beauties of nature and man the whole world 
over; and is the source from which the Christian religion gained 
the means for its world-wide dissemination in all languages. 

But for ambition the world would be a most dreary old place. 
Civilization would be unknown. Forest and waste and wilder¬ 
ness would alternately prevail. Rude huts would be our 
homes; rough skins and rougher weaves our clothing; our only 
food that which Nature provides for the beasts and the fowls 
and the fishes. Disease, war, famine would stalk abroad un¬ 
controlled, with no charity to stay or to ameliorate their effects. 

As we go about our daily tasks little do we realize this tre¬ 
mendous impetus within us or its importance. Its fire car¬ 
ries to spiritual as well as to material results and therein wins 
its finest achievements. The spirit of service exemplifies this. 
That ambition is highest and noblest which, denying self, accom¬ 
plishes the greatest good to the greatest number of our fellow- 
men. Material ambition enables the whole world to profit and 
to be a better world; but spiritual ambition achieves the dizzy 
heights of everlasting fame. 

The severe and growing competition of the age tends to dull 
man’s finer senses and traits: so it is well that ambition has 


Weaves in the Fabric 


61 


served to provide us with the silent, uninvited companionship 
of books and art; with the churches; with the calls of charity 
and of outraged virtue, to hold us true to our finer instincts. 

The qualities which most closely endear men to one another 
are the spiritual qualities; and it should be the ambition of every 
man, woman, and child to cultivate these, both for the better¬ 
ment of the world and for self-betterment. 

The names which are blazoned the brightest on the pages of 
our history are the names of those who stood supreme for the 
simple and homely virtues. Lincoln’s greatest ambition—that 
of the preservation of the Union, with all that this meant to a 
troubled people—was granted him. By it he died a martyr to 
his faith in his fellow-countrymen, and by the same token is his 
name and fame imperishable. Such an example renews our 
faith in man, and reminds us that God is still in heaven, the 
Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Of all the qualities that his¬ 
tory records of this great, patriotic American—our sixteenth 
President—his deep humility before man and God and his fine 
sense of justice outshine all others. He served his God; and in 
serving Him, better served his race and nation. 

Mr. Harding’s rare qualities of statesmanship, marked as 
these were by the wonderful strides taken by the Nation under 
his wise and able leadership, are most highly respected, and they 
will be ever more highly prized with the passage of time as the 
country realizes more and more the great measure of their ac¬ 
complishment. But the qualities which so endeared the late 
President to all were his great heart and his unvarying kindness 
to and consideration of all with whom he came in contact, 
whether personally or politically. 

Haughtiness and arrogance hold others aloof, and isolate us 
from all that is best in life. Humility and kindness, on the 
other hand, enshroud us in good will, illumine our paths to suc¬ 
cess and delight our souls with the charms and personalities of 
our fellow men and women. 

Malice causes us to be shunned as unfit and dangerous asso¬ 
ciates, or to have our hopes and ambitions incontinently crushed 
by a just and outraged world. Greed evokes the disgust, and 
vanity the contempt, of others. Mercy and justice are essential 
to fit men for position and place. Hope maintains our courage 


62 


Why Defend the Nation? 


in all the trials of life, and comforts all accordingly; while faith 
alone fits us for that hereafter from whose bourne no traveler 
ever returns. 

In charity lies our great opportunity to emulate Christ by aid¬ 
ing the weak, the poor and the needy; thrice blessed is he who 
is filled with charity. 

Finally, it is right to work for reward, but the greatest re¬ 
ward for any man lies in his inner consciousness of duty well 
performed. One cannot be bought, intrigued, or connived into 
the granting of self- respect; and therein lies its superiority over 
the highest respect in which one may be held by others. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Building a Nation 

S ELECT a foundation on the rock of Morality. Locate 
thereon as corner-stones the imperishable ideals of Truth, 
Justice, Liberty and Freedom. Erect a framework of Loyalty. 
Buttress with Christian Teachings and brace with Christian 
Example. Sheathe with the Spirit of Martyrs; roof with Man¬ 
hood, tested in the crucible of Adversity; line with Faith; adorn 
with Hope; furnish with Charity; tint with the soft hues of 
Brotherly Love and Affection; and terrace with Humility. 

You will then have builded “after the manner of our fore¬ 
fathers” ; and by that token you will know that your structure 
is fitted to endure. 


63 










APPENDIX 


PRESTIGE 

(From the Infantry Journal, February, 1923) 

T N going over an old file of the Infantry Journal we came across an 
article on the subject of prestige written by Col. Frank D. Ely 
(then Captain) and published eleven years ago. There are so many 
thoughts in it that apply to our service conditions today that we are 
republishing it with the hope that it will fall on fertile ground and be 
of as much interest to our readers as it has been to us. 


Prestige.— Authority or importance hosed on past achievements, or gained 
from the appearance of power or ability; the moral influence of reputation or of 
former character or success; ascendancy based on recognition of power .— 
Standard Dictionary. 

T HERE is deep satisfaction in the knowledge of a glorious past. 

Pride of race and love of country are essential to a spirited peo¬ 
ple. Equally by layman and soldier they are held as sacred to our 
national honor. But the soldier feels that the glory of our arms is 
peculiarly his heritage. 

Judged on past achievements the Infantry is first in her immense 
wealth of accomplishment, valor, and power. Her heroic dead 
heaped on memorable battlefields bear proof of her determination and 
her ability to do or die. No other arm counts such signal successes, 
nor such terrific losses; no other arm has so widely and so generously 
contributed to history. Ever the strength of armies, the glories of 
war are hers. Through the manifestation of her rugged power, Water¬ 
loo and Gettysburg leaped from obscurity to enduring fame. Other 
tributes to her power are Vicksburg, Shiloh, Franklin, Chickamauga, 
Chancellorsville, Antietam, and the Wilderness, all fought while this 
Nation trembled—while the Union all but fell. The power of In¬ 
fantry has ever been the deciding factor in war, and the very names 
Army and Infantry have long held a common meaning. 

Brilliant as has been her past, the prestige so dearly won is not 
easily held. The fruit of action and never of inactivity, prestige can 
be maintained only at the cost of devoted effort and well-directed 
and sustained energies. We who inherit her past and who cherish 
her ideals; we who are responsible for her readiness and efficiency 
and the perpetuity of her power for peace; we, in whom the Nation 
places her trust of that power, are ever awed by our mighty task— 


65 




66 


Why Defend the Nation? 


are ever conscious that the trust is sacred and the duties many, 
stern, and exacting. Not the least of these lies in guarding against 
service changes inimical to efficiency which are ever being advanced 
by the uninformed or the seekers of personal power or advancement. 
The best safety against this evil lies in the widest possible publicity, 
affording the people full information and through this a basis for 
sound understanding. 

But ours is a splendid heritage; for responsibility.has ever been a 
developer of men, and of honor in men. Just as it made Infantry 
prestige by the manner in which our predecessors bore the responsi¬ 
bilities thrust upon them, so in the present and future generations they 
will as surely maintain it. As we bear our responsibility so shall our 
worth be tested and the prestige of our Arm confirmed. 

Confidence is essential to success, and pessimism never inspires it. 
War has no place for “the man who knows it can’t be done.” Op¬ 
timism is ever the key to greatness, but eternal vigilance is the price. 

Prestige, like character, is a living fact. Prestige is character. 
And like character, prestige establishes the truth of its existence 
simply, quietly, irresistibly. It must live in the individual before it can 
exist in the organization. Nothing begets it more than honest pride 
in a hard-won past. The prestige of the West Point cadets as a 
military student body lies peculiarly in individual excellence and in 
pride of past honors, with jealousy for those of the present and 
future. Discipline is highly developed, that continuity of training 
which is so essential to its development being absolutely unbroken. 
This lesson is significant of service needs, frequent changes being 
destructive of much good derived from training. There is a form 
of discipline that enables men to perform efficiently on the defensive 
or from behind parapets, where both the liability to confusion and 
the personal danger are minimized; but that higher discipline which 
enables men to force the fight home, seek the bayonet’s contact, and 
if need be die, is not easily acquired. It can only result from long, 
severe, and continued training. Such discipline is peculiarly In¬ 
fantry discipline in that no other even measurably fits the Arm for its 
part in war. Upon Infantry falls the shock of battle; by it is both 
borne and inflicted more than four-fifths of the losses. To the exist¬ 
ence of prestige discipline is as essential as it is difficult to instill. 
Once acquired, guard it as a precious treasure—lovingly, as a child; 
tenderly, as a wife; reverently, as a mother. 

Infantry prestige will reach its flood only when every officer of 
our Arm appreciates a personal duty in maintaining it. Every man 
must realize the prohibitive nature of the existing conditions against 
training Infantry, and both the need, and the propriety of dignified 
attack on these conditions on all proper occasions, with a view to 
early correction or elimination. There must be manifest pride in her 
accomplishments—and history affords no end of reasons for such 
pride; and there must be appreciation of the unending care and pa¬ 
tience required in future development and training. We must not 
expect a few workers to accept and satisfactorily discharge every 


Prestige 


67 


obligation developing upon the Arm or made possible to it; nor is 
it the part of wisdom to permit a few to shoulder the burdens of the 
many—to barter the thought of many minds for that of a few when 
all are trained in the same school. 

Every Infantryman knows the necessity of constant personal en¬ 
deavor for increased efficiency, both in our Arm and in the service. 
And he whose lines continually fall in pleasant places while his voice 
for the Infantry remains unheard is regarded askance. There is no 
need for blatant oratory, but there is great need of frequent iteration 
of the simple truths, that the real and pressing needs of the Infantry 
and of the service may the sooner become generally known and receive 
recognition. 

The duty of every man is plain. Let him paraphrase Lord Nelson: 
The Infantry expects every man to do his duty. 


THE MESSAGE OF NATIONAL DEFENSE* 


Y^THAT Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, and similar organi- 
W zations are to municipalities for good government and local de¬ 
velopment, the American Legion and the Organized Reserves are to 
this Nation on the question of the National Defense. 

Good goods cost money, or effort, and generally both. The as¬ 
surance of those splendid prize packages carried in the preamble to 
the Constitution—this Union; the maintenance of justice; our domestic 
peace; our general welfare; and the blessing of liberty to ourselves 
and to posterity—the assurance, I repeat, of all these rests directly 
on our provisions for an adequate National Defense. 

Whatever his cut in expenses, no wise business man ever allows his 
insurance to lapse; but our national insurance so lapsed for reasons 
most inadequate. Unless public opinion be roused and so strongly 
voiced that it shall reverberate through the halls of Congress in no 
uncertain tone, the present deplorable exposure of this country to the 
machinations of foes within and the threat of foes without must and 
will continue, thus threatening our people, threatening our wealth, 
and menacing our very existence as a free Nation. On the creation 
of this favorable public opinion the National Defense rests. 

Who can put this great message across? Accomplishment and 
proved fitness instantly suggest two fit spokesmen: 1st, the American 
Legion, composed of the very flower of young American manhood; 
and 2d, the Organized Reserve Corps. Composed as both of these 
great organizations are of representative, patriotic men who went, who 
saw, and who conquered both the enemy and the innumerable hard¬ 
ships of the soldier’s life, they must now demand for themselves and 
for posterity that the like of the conditions of 1917-1918 in this 
country shall not occur again. And there are none who may question 
the motive of that demand. 

Concretely, just what is the demand? It is that there be provided 
by Congress an efficient National Defense. 

What is now lacking to insure an efficient National Defense? 

In the main, two features: 

1. Funds. 

2. Favorable public opinion, recognizing the need of defense as 
imperative. 

What are the provisions today for National Defense? 

Our Navy defends the sea, while our land defense devolves upon 
the Army of the United States, composed of three elements: 


*A talk by Colonel Ely before Advertising Men’s Post No. 
Legion, at Chicago, November 27, 1922. 


38, American 


68 



The Message of National Defense 


69 


The Regular Army, generally for garrisons, in peace time and 
overseas; to furnish Army overhead and personnel for the training 
of the other component elements; 

The National Guard, available in minor emergencies in the States 
and within the United States, and in event of war or major emergen¬ 
cies available for service without restrictions; 

The Organized Reserves, providing a trained, organized, and bal¬ 
anced force which may be readily expanded and developed into an 
adequate war component of the Army of the United States to meet 
any major emergency requiring the use of troops in excess of those 
of the two other elements just named. 

Do these provisions for a National Defense suffice? Yes and no. 

The Regular Army has been reduced to about 12,000 officers and 
125,000 enlisted strength. The actual strength of the National Guard 
today is, in round numbers, 163,000. The combined strength of these 
two components of the Army, approximately 300,000, is only a nucleus 
for an army suited to our needs in modern war. 

As a consequence, the real dependence of the Nation for defense 
lies in the development of the Organized Reserves. And this develop¬ 
ment requires time, funds, and favorable public opinion. 

Now the prestige essential for a successful development of the 
Organized Reserves, including the securing from Congress of the es¬ 
sential funds, demands that the movement receive the active support 
of all former members of the Army. The youth approaching maturity 
is strongly influenced by what you do in the premises. If you who 
saw—you who participated in the World War—if you who know 
of your own knowledge the necessity for and the requirements of 
prompt mobilization of the Nation’s defenders on the call to arms 
look askance at this movement or stand aloof therefrom, the impres¬ 
sion—nay, the conviction will be carried that the necessity for Na¬ 
tional Defense does not exist; whereas we all know that it is a very 
imperative need. 

But there is another and a personal reason why you should join 
the Organized Reserves, now! 

The regulations provide for mobilization by organizations rather 
than by individuals. This means that those who enroll and serve in 
peace will be assured priority of service when the call to war comes. 
This is but a fair regulation, as we all must admit; but how will 
it affect you if you fail to join now? You are red-blooded, you are 
in your early manhood, you are patriotic and filled with the desire 
to serve, and your family and friends expect it of you. The urge 
of your natural impulse will at the first threat of national peril send 
you to seek service with the colors, only to find that your neighbor 
who thought enough of National Defense to give it recognition in 
peace time by enrolling in the Reserves is before you. Of course, if 
the existing reserves of officers should prove inadequate for the 
emergency, your chance would come; but in any event you would 
get away a bad second or worse against conditioned men off to a 


70 


Why Defend the Nation? 


flying start. And remember, too. we have some 80,000 officers 
already enrolled in the O. R. Corps, with the number steadily aug¬ 
menting. 

So for every reason which carries appeal to you ex-service men, 
your decision should be instant, and your resolve that you will join 
the Organized Reserves today! Your country needs you now, just 
as truly as it needed your services in the recent war. Forget your 
troubles in the A. E. F., if you had any, and remember that war is 
no bed of roses, but rather worse than what old Tecumseh Sherman 
called it. Join the Reserves and sell the idea of National Defense to 
your neighbors and to your kin. Bring up your boys and your girls 
in a spirit of patriotism and live patriotism as the good Christian 
lives his religion. You know how strong is childish reverence for 
what Dad says; and it is even greater for what Dad does when the 
trumpets shrill and the drums roll. You want to hold that reverence; 
so don’t block your way by procrastinating, but walk right up and 
enroll, now! 


THE ARMY IN PEACE 

By Hon. John W. Weeks, 

Secretary of War* 

I N a recent issue of a well-known magazine I read with deep interest 
an engaging article on the Netherlands, written by one of her 
eminent sons, who is also our fellow citizen, Mr. Edward Bok. With 
characteristic energy Mr. Bok pictured the ignorance of the average 
American concerning that enterprising little country, which he proved 
to be, however, not tiny at all, but indeed a great empire. I confess 
that I was very much instructed by his picture. One must admire the 
strategy employed to emphasize his very earnest and praiseworthy 
purpose. I hope that I might, therefore, be forgiven for attempting to 
employ Mr. Bok’s method while avoiding any pretense of borrowing his 
inimitable style to emphasize an equally earnest and, I trust, ad¬ 
mirable purpose of my own. 

Strange as it may seem, it is a fact that the average American knows 
very little about his own Government. He is too busy with his every¬ 
day affairs to give much attention to its activities. He knows that it 
is divided into three branches, the executive, the judicial, and the legis¬ 
lative. He knows the name of the President, the Vice-President, prob¬ 
ably two or more of the Cabinet, the names of the Senators from his 
State, and the Congressman representing his district. Every two years 
he goes to the polls—that is, if nothing more important interferes—and 
votes. Beyond this point he takes little interest in his Government 
until perchance he discovers through the medium of his daily news¬ 
paper something in the Government to criticise. 

During my labors and studies of the past year and a half it has 
often impressed me that the average American knows scarcely more 
of the problems and accomplishments of his own War Department 
than he does of the geography and history of the Netherlands. He 
knows that there is a Regular Army; that its officers are trained at 
West Point, that there is a militia, that in event of an emergency he 
and his fellow citizens will become a part of the military force of the 
Nation if their services are needed, and that in time of war an Ameri¬ 
can Army will acquit itself with honor and credit. In times of peace, 
however, so little publicity is given to the activities of the Regular 
Army that it is very seldom, if ever, brought to the attention of Mr. 
Average Citizen, and if he gives any thought to it at all he is apt to 
think of the Army as an organization housed in very comfortable 
barracks, which drills a little, parades on national holidays, stands 
guard at forts along our coast for which we may never have any use, 


*Address delivered at the annual dinner of the Boston Chamber of Com¬ 
merce, November 14, 1922. 


71 



72 


Why Defend the Nation? 


has a number of vague and probably unimportant duties to perform, 
and costs a great deal of money which could well be devoted to other 
purposes. I have accordingly felt it to be one of my duties to bring 
to the attention of our citizens the varied and important activities of 
the Army. My efforts in that direction quite frequently draw the re¬ 
sponse. “Well, I didn’t know that.” This always encourages me in 
my efforts, since we appreciate that true self-government can come 
only through knowledge. It is my present purpose to endeavor to 
interest you, as I have been interested, in this instructional problem, 
with the hope that you might yourselves gain a deeper understanding 
of our difficulties and be better able to continue and possibly increase 
the loyal support which the members of the Boston Chamber of Com¬ 
merce have always given to constructive programs of the Government. 

You may not be aware that by the act of June, 1920, a definite 
military policy was adopted, based on the lessons of the World War, 
and that this program is the first permanent military policy the United 
States has ever had. The War Department is devoting itself very 
enthusiastically to the execution of the terms of this project, and the 
Secretary of War is charged with the responsibility for its proper 
administration. Under the requirements of law he has, however, an 
additional duty to urge upon our people a continued attention to their 
need for defensive preparation. In attempting to defend the activi¬ 
ties of the department in this respect, I explain that what we advo¬ 
cate is really a most conservative policy of insurance against war and 
internal disturbance. When called upon, as I frequently am, to defend 
myself against the charge of militarism, I reply that I have no greater 
fondness for war than I have for fire, theft, murder, disease, and 
bankruptcy; yet I continue to urge the degree of insurance against 
the one that is recognized by most business men as sane policy of 
.insurance against the others. It then is pointed out that the insurance 
offered is of the participating type. The investment in national de¬ 
fense has always brought full returns to the country in the physical 
and sanitary training of young citizens and in the constructive accom¬ 
plishments of the War Department and its personnel. The question is 
sometimes asked, “Why do Americans need this physical and sanitary 
training?” I reply, of course, that our experiences with the drafted 
men during the late war disclosed the alarming truth that approxi¬ 
mately 50 per cent of our young men have physical defects, many of 
which would eventually prove disabling and most of which could 
easily be corrected by physical training and instruction, which is 
usually followed by the comment, “Well, I didn’t know that.” 

This, I believe, is one of the most interesting aspects of military 
training. We are living in an age when most serious-minded men are 
studying the problems of race betterment. All about us are springing 
up organizations such as the “better babies” movement, the “Life 
Extension Institute,” and other activities whose purpose is the en¬ 
richment of our national life through physical improvement. What 
will be the. influence upon our future of our physical evolution? 
Every American should ask this question, and there is no better source 


The Army in Peace 


73 


of pertinent information than in the writings of the Surgeon General 
of the Army on “Military Anthropology.” It is proven therein that 
the majority of our World War recruits were awkward, narrow- 
chested, under weight,. and generally in poor physical condition. After 
a few months of training they were developed into broad-chested, two- 
fisted specimens of American manhood. These citizens received divi¬ 
dends from our defense investment in the form of definite and material 
gains in weight and in chest measurements. They were enrolled in the 
greatest “Life Extension Institute” in the world. The War Department 
was given an opportunity of surveying the health of the nation. Many 
basic diseases and disabilities—such as weak arches, weak backs, 
malaria, social diseases, incipient tuberculosis, and countless other in¬ 
fections—were discovered in time and eradicated. Camps were made 
models of neatness, and personal hygiene and sanitation were taught 
as primary studies. Inoculations against typhoid and similar plagues 
resulted in the establishment of new minimum records for prevalence. 
It can not be questioned that the occurrence of these diseases through¬ 
out our country has been considerably lessened as a result of the train¬ 
ing and medical administration of young men during the war. “Is 
not this, Mr. Average American, a satisfactory dividend from mili¬ 
tary training?” “Oh, certainly,” you reply, “but I didn’t realize that 
all this was true.” 

Mothers and fathers frequently protest against exposing their boys 
to the “dangerous” influences of military camps. They fear that 
the boys might become dissipated. We reply to these parents that the 
records of the Surgeon General show that there is a prevalence of 
social disease among the young men of our country, straight from 
their own homes, that constitutes a shocking menace to our national 
existence. The influence of the military camp is a continual education 
against the dangers of intemperate life. While the soldier is in camp, 
he is protected in every possible way from these demoralizing diseases 
—by education, by disciplinary measures, and by prompt treatment of 
those who can not resist nor escape. The American Army in France 
was accordingly able to establish such a low record of disease that 
our allies were astonished. We have continued to progress in handling 
this grave problem and I believe that one of the greatest benefits which 
can be conferred upon national life through military training will be 
the effectual control of this menacing evil. The first step is to in¬ 
struct those who “didn’t know that.” ^ 

The statements that I have just made are sometimes questioned by 
individuals who remember the disease rates which prevailed in our 
armies in former wars. The reply is that we have been progressing. 
During the Civil War smallpox claimed over 7,000 soldier victims; 
during the Spanish-American War and the Philippine insurrection 
there were 258 deaths from this disease; in the World War we lost 
14 soldiers with smallpox, although there were 4,000,000 of them in 
service. In the Civil War over 15,000 men died from malaria, while 
during the World War we lost but 25. In the Spanish-American 
War 20,000 soldiers, or 12 per cent of the total, suffered from typhoid 


74 


Why Defend the Nation? 


fever; during the World War there were 2,000 cases, or about one- 
twentieth of 1 per cent. Had the death rates for typhoid in the World 
War been the same as in 1898, we would have lost 60,000 soldiers 
from this alone—more than we actually lost from all diseases. 

It is difficult for the average American to appreciate that the Sur¬ 
geon General of the Army is not merely the head of a small body of 
“military” medical men. He truly represents the entire medical pro¬ 
fession in the military field, just as the Chief of Engineers represents 
the engineering profession and as the Army itself represents the coun¬ 
try. At the same time, the medical profession itself gives generous 
recognition to the wonderful pioneering work of Army surgeons. Our 
Medical Department has established certain basic principles that influ¬ 
ence the prevention of disease throughout the world. Many of their 
achievements have resulted in the saving of innumerable lives and 
have actually made possible the free commercial intercourse between 
the countries on this continent. The countries to the south of us were 
once ravaged by yellow fever and malignant malaria. The French 
enterprise on the Isthmus of Panama was completely blocked by the 
fact that 75 per cent of the employees from France lost their lives 
from disease within a few months after landing on the Isthmus. In 
1901 a group of medical officers, headed by Maj. Walter Reed, de¬ 
termined definitely that yellow fever was transmitted by the mosquito. 
Within a very few months after this discovery Habana was cleared 
of the disease that had ravaged it for 150 years. Our greatest 
achievement in Panama was the conversion of this pestiferous district 
into a healthy region. Since 1906 one can live in Panama with equal 
assurance of protection against disease as if living, for example, in 
Boston. This was the work of the Army. When we took over the 
administration of Porto Rico the entire population was affected by 
“tropical anemia.” The Army doctors demonstrated that this disease 
was a hookworm infection, and the measures taken accordingly have 
redeemed these people from a plague that would forever have hin¬ 
dered their development. There are many equally striking illustrations 
of the work of the American Army in improving the health of this 
country, our dependencies, and, indeed, of the entire world. 

“That is all extremely interesting,” reply my questioners, “but how 
about the other ‘constructive’ accomplishments of the War Depart¬ 
ment? We thought that the purpose of the War Department was to 
wage war.” This is an almost ineradicable tendency—to believe that 
the War Department is hoping for war and uninterested in the pur¬ 
suits of peace. 

“Do you realize,” I respond, “that until the middle of the past cen¬ 
tury the Army was the only public organization fully able to encourage 
and assist our citizens in their development of this great country?” 

“Do you know that the great Lewis and Clarke expedition that 
opened up the Northwest was conducted by the Army?” 

The Army conducted nearly all preliminary explorations in the early 
days of the country. It constructed the early roads. It built bridges 


The Army in Peace 


75 


and canals. It alone was able to conduct the early surveys and make 
the maps which are so essential in the opening up of a new region. 
Army engineers initiated most of the accurate methods which are now 
employed in the geodetic, topographic, and hydrographic surveys of 
our possessions. The Army was virtually the pioneer of the pioneers. 
As our citizens moved west over the prairies and through the for¬ 
ests they traveled routes which were surveyed by Army engineers, 
constructed by the Army, and protected by military posts. They set¬ 
tled on locations which had been surveyed by the Army, and their 
titles were established and valid only because of the surveys. In de¬ 
veloping the land the settlers were protected against Indians by troops 
of the Army. Finally, when the time came to link these outposts to 
our eastern civilization, it was the Army that located and constructed 
the railroads. Only after the railroads had developed engineers of 
their own and the country had become safer for travel, did the Army 
relinquish its tasks and turn elsewhere for its missions. The troops 
of the line remained on the frontiers. The engineers of the Army 
began then to develop the great waterways, improving our rivers and 
harbors, to supervise public parks, and to construct and administer 
our public buildings. 

Up to 1855 there was scarcely a railroad in this country that was 
not projected, built, and operated in large part by the Army. Army 
engineers located, constructed, and managed such well-known roads 
as the Baltimore & Ohio; the Northern Central; the Erie; the Boston & 
Providence; the New York, New Haven & Hartford; and the Boston & 
Albany. Practically all of the transcontinental railroads were pro¬ 
jected by the Army. An Army officer built the best locomotive of his 
time, after his own design. So widespread was his fame that when 
the Czar of Russia desired to build a railroad from St. Petersburg to 
Moscow he chose the American officer for the task. The officer, Lieut. 
G. W. Whistler, died before completing the work, but he passed it to 
another Army officer to finish. Americans are proud of their rail¬ 
roads. They owe their early development to the Army. 

If the listener is interested, he usually asks, “What else do we 
owe to the Army in early development?” 

So I continue. The Army built the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and 
the Erie Canal. The most effective influence in opening up the Middle 
West was the old Cumberland Pike, running from Cumberland, Md., 
to St. Louis, Mo. This was built by the Army. Practically every 
boundary of the United States, and most of the State boundaries, 
were surveyed and marked by the Army. The famous Lake Survey 
was made by the Army. Because of engineering difficulties involved 
in its construction, the old lighthouse erected on Minots Ledge in 
Boston Bay was one of the most prominent sea-rock lighthouses in 
the world. This, like most of our lighthouses, was erected by the 
Army. The old channel of Boston Harbor had a depth of only 18 feet. 
The Army engineers have increased the depth of this important water- 


76 


Why Defend the Nation? 


way to 35 feet and widened it from 100 feet to 1,200 feet, and similar 
work has been carried on by them in all harbors and navigable streams 
of the United States. 

When the American citizen visits our National Capital the first 
sight to greet his eye is the stately Washington Monument, completed 
under great difficulties by the Army. He next turns to the Capitol, 
of which the wings and dome were built by Army engineers. The 
Army likewise built the old Post Office Building, the new Municipal 
Building, the Government Printing Office, the War College, the Agri¬ 
culture Building, and the beautiful Library of Congress. Army engi¬ 
neers supervised construction of the new Lincoln Memorial and prac¬ 
tically all of the park system in the District of Columbia. They built 
the Washington Aqueduct, and are even developing the playgrounds in 
our Capital City. 

I now will discuss the present work of the Army engineers, develop¬ 
ing and maintaining our great waterways, including the Panama 
Canal, which the Army largely built. You gentlemen are familiar with 
this work and I will not bother you with its details. In addition to the 
present work itself, there is the planning and projection of future ac¬ 
tivities. The Board of Rivers and Harbors has recently instituted 
extensive studies of the port development in our country concerning 
their present commercial facilities, the hinterlands which they can 
serve, their proper development, and factors which advance or retard 
their progress. Two of these studies for the ports of Boston, Mass., 
and Portland, Me., have already been published and are attracting 
enthusiastic attention among the railroads, shippers, and commercial 
interests generally. It is felt that this work is meeting a long-felt 
want. 

Then there is another direction of interest. One of the most critical 
points in our transportation system is at the terminals of transfer 
between land and water carriers. Because of the antiquated facilities 
the transfer costs are often greater than the cost of transport over 
hundreds of miles by rail or by ship. The Board of Rivers and Har¬ 
bors is conducting a thorough investigation of terminal conditions and 
is giving very valuable advice to the local communities which can 
profit by improvement in this important respect. 

A striking example of this is the project for the development of the 
port of New York, which presents a most difficult problem. While the 
Army engineers are not actually physically developing the project, it 
is being done under their supervision and with their cooperation. The 
Army engineers are rendering most valuable assistance in developing 
the ports of Houston, Tex., and Los Angeles, Calif., which are becom¬ 
ing great terminals. The Army is actually constructing the ship chan¬ 
nels entering these ports, and is cooperating and advising with the 
local authorities regarding the construction of terminals, docks, etc. 
In short, the Army engineers are working with a zeal that is excelled 
by no other public organization to adapt their various projects to a 
coordinated scheme for the entire country—one that will fit properly 
into the industrial and transportation fabric of our national life. 


The Army in Peace 


77 


It was not long after the railroads had bound our country into a 
unity that was further cemented by reconciliation, after the Civil War, 
when we were faced with the problem of colonization of acquired 
territories; the problem that is perhaps the severest test of the ideals 
of any nation. Alaska, Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines, 
Guam, and the Canal Zone—one by one these burdens were thrust 
upon us. We have done this successfully and the major part of the 
task has been the work of the Army. When our citizens began their 
mad rush into the Klondike, it was the Army that opened the harbors 
and built the roads and trails leading to gold. When the gold was 
discovered or lost, men remained in this new land, and they were pro¬ 
tected from mob rule and lawlessness by the Army. The Army sur¬ 
veyed their lands and policed their frontiers. Their only link with 
civilization was the cable constructed and operated by the Signal Corps, 
which also operates 600 miles of telegraph overland. Army engineers 
projected the railroads which are beginning to open the country to 
intensive culture. Even today, a large part in the administration of 
this great territory is played by Army officers. Business to the extent 
of over $100,000,000 annually is transacted over the 57 cable and tele¬ 
graph offices and 17 inland radio stations, all operated by the Signal 
Corps. Alaska knows the Army as a friend in need. And as it was in 
Alaska, so also in the other colonies or territories which we have 
acquired. 

The Philippines, Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and Panama all have 
histories of achievement, history in which the progressive forces of 
civilization have struggled against reaction and decadence. That civil¬ 
ized forces are triumphant is due primarily to the intelligent adminis¬ 
tration and constructive talents of the American Army. Building up 
public utilities, eradicating terrible diseases, educating the children, 
attending even to the spiritual needs, creating the institutions of self- 
government and protecting these institutions from aggression—in all 
these has the Army left its seal upon our possessions and protector¬ 
ates and proven itself once more the pioneer of the American pioneers. 

Then this question is asked: “You say that the Army is responsible 
for our colonization—just what is their success?” 

In the Philippines, where strife between tribes was almost continu¬ 
ous, we have built roads, and railroads, and schools, as well as 
churches, and have done more in 20 years to make the Filipinos a 
united people than was done before in centuries. Do you realize that 
we have taught practically all of the children to speak one language— 
the English language? 

In Panama, our predecessors were unable to remain. Our work there 
is a conspicuous example of what can be accomplished, under the worst 
tropical conditions, in sanitation, municipal engineering, and construc¬ 
tion. The American occupation has exerted and will continue to exert 
a powerful influence upon all of the near-by countries in Central and 
South America. These are stimulated to undertake much needed im¬ 
provement for which the means are derived from the increased pros- 


78 


Why Defend the Nation? 


perity which the canal has brought. For the last fouT months the 
tolls collected by our own Government have exceeded a million dol¬ 
lars per month. Seventy-five lines of vessels serving the great trade 
areas of the world ply through the waterway. The equipment of the 
Panama Canal as a base for fueling, supply, and repair is complete. 
It is, incidentally, a military asset of the greatest importance. Its use 
increases our ability in defense at least 50 per cent, although its total 
cost is no more than the cost of 10 modern battleships, which would 
be doomed to obsolescence in .20 years. 

Americans do not believe in conquest of territory. The average citi¬ 
zen feels, perhaps, that our pioneering days are over. We can not 
admit, however, that we have reached the end of our constructive 
abilities. There are other methods in which a civilization makes itself 
an influence for good. We have barely emerged from a war in which 
we fought for our convictions. It was our purpose to fight not only 
bravely and with determination, but also fairly and with mercy toward 
the weak and helpless. “American relief” has acquired as much sig¬ 
nificance as a slogan of American progress as once attached to the 
cry of “westward ho.” The average citizen knows and loves Mr. 
Hoover for his part in American relief in Europe. Does the average 
citizen know that, except for the titular head of the organization and 
a few clerical assistants, the American relief in Europe was the 
Army and its individuals? Five colonels of the Regular Army acted 
as Mr. Hoover’s principal assistants either in Paris or at the head of 
more important missions, such as those which were sent into Poland 
and Armenia. There was a military personnel of 320 officers and 
464 enlisted men who constituted the missions and agencies which 
distributed American relief. In addition, there was a vast amount 
of work, such as providing convoys and courier service and unloading 
supplies, performed directly by the American Expeditionary Force 
itself. In other words, the American relief was merely one of the 
activities of the American Expeditionary Force. The Russian relief 
is similarly an organization of Army officers and enlisted men carry¬ 
ing on the work of American civilization as pioneers. 

We are obviously on the eve of perhaps the greatest period of con¬ 
struction and progress that we have yet known. The War Department 
is already playing its accustomed role of constructive pioneering. I 
have mentioned the work of the military engineers. There is a very 
significant influence in standardization of manufacture exerted by the 
department in its planning for the mobilization of industries for war. 
Military experiments in design of tanks and artillery tractors were 
influential in stimulating the development of the new tractor industry. 
The pioneering activities of our Air Service are preparing the way 
for an aviation industry in stimulating manufacture and in projecting 
or advising on projects for airways and communication facilities for 
air traffic. In the near future aerial activity will play a great part 
in our national existence. The aerial development of the Army is not 
only for the purpose of war preparation but an extension of the serv¬ 
ice to commercial life. The department encourages the construction 


The Army in Peace 


79 


and development of new and better airplanes and is furnishing every 
aid practical within appropriations to develop air lines which will be 
beneficial commercially. If this were not done, I venture to say that 
there would be years of delay in obtaining any commercial results 
worth mentioning. I have no doubt that within the next 10 years we 
will see many air routes established and doing a prosperous business; 
in fact, it would not be an extreme statement to make that the de¬ 
velopment will be comparable to that of the automobile. 

The Army has likewise had a pioneering part in the development of 
the radio. Although the primary task of the Signal Corps is the modi¬ 
fication of commercial apparatus to suit military purposes, its research 
and development experts are continually presenting to the scientific 
world solutions of vexing problems^ Among these may be mentioned 
the loop, which superseded the cumbersome outside antennae, and 
which led the way to the radio compass, and General Squier’s remark¬ 
able invention, which applies radio principles to commercial telephone 
systems and makes possible the utilization of existing telephone, tele¬ 
graph, and even power lines for the sending of private messages and 
for broadcasting and reception. The Army has today 72 radio sta¬ 
tions comprising its radio nets installed to cover the United States. 
Last month these handled official messages employing more than 
230,000 words and accordingly saved the Government a considerable 
sum of money that would otherwise have been spent on these com¬ 
munications. Does thei average citizen realize that the Signal Corps 
today operates approximately 400 telephone systems, half of which 
are owned by the Government, and that the Army is accordingly a 
telephone organization second only to the Bell telephone system, which 
is, of course, the largest telephone organization on the Western Con¬ 
tinent? “Just what,” he asks, “is the value to the country of these 
systems ?” 

To answer this I look back first to the construction of the transconti¬ 
nental railroads and point out that the continual progress of the Army 
in development work was always followed by elaboration through 
civilian activities and that it was the elaboration of what the Army 
began that gave us what we call our civilization today. One of the 
greatest impetus to the expansion of our telegraph system was given 
by the Signal Corps of the Army just after the Civil War. As late as 
1877 there were more than 3,000 miles of telegraph service throughout 
the South operated by the Signal Corps as an outcome of their service 
in the war. These wires provided the framework for building up the 
telegraph service in the South that exists today, just as the activities 
of the Army in early pioneer days resulted in settlements which later 
became great cities, such as Pittsburgh on the site of Fort Pitt and 
Chicago on the site of Fort Dearborn. So we can now look upon the 
activities of our Signal Corps with realization that they provide us 
with an enormous addition to our other available means of communi¬ 
cation and with full expectation that in our coming development these 
means will prove of inestimable value. 


80 


Why Defend the Nation? 


The invention of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army in applying 
radio principles to commercial telephone and telegraph systems has 
greatly multiplied the capacity of existing telephone and telegraph 
lines and increased manifold our facilities for electrical communica¬ 
tion. By utilizing the principle embodied in this invention, it is now 
possible to send simultaneously over the same line a number of tele¬ 
graphic messages and at the same time carry on several telephone con¬ 
versations. The system is now in actual practical use by the large com¬ 
mercial companies, and it is the present practice to send eight two-way 
telegraph messages and three two-way telephone channels, these being 
in addition to the messages transmitted by the usual practices. It 
might be remembered that this new system is just coming into use and 
its full possibilities have not as yet been worked out, but it is fairly 
certain that this method offers tremendous possibilities for increasing 
our facilities for communication. This method is particularly adapted 
for long-distance telephone transmission, and in all long-distance tele¬ 
phone communication this system is now used to a very large extent. 
The old-fashioned battery telephone method is quickly becoming obso¬ 
lete, and the newer methods employing radio principles are rapidly 
taking its place. 

It was also found that by the utilization of the same principles it 
is possible to transmit telephone and telegraph messages over power 
transmission lines, and these are being now utilized for broadcasting. 
As a result of experiments carried on in the Signal Corps a new method 
of broadcasting, which consists of transmitting speech or music over 
the lighting circuits, is now being introduced, and it is hoped that 
before very long it will be possible to receive broadcasted material, 
whatever its character, by connecting a small suitable receiving set to 
the light sockets in your homes. 

It is interesting to appreciate that our Army has actually been a 
veritable “vanguard of American civilization” just as the Roman 
armies left behind many of the most imperishable monuments to that 
earlier Republic. 

I proceed to other little known activities, such as those of the Chemi¬ 
cal Warfare Service. Does the average citizen know that the deadly 
mustard gas, as well as several other war gases, is being employed ex¬ 
perimentally with great hopes of its proving a valuable retardant in 
the treatment of tuberculosis? 

“Why,” the citizen exclaims, “I thought that war gases caused 
respiratory diseases.” 

I inform him that, on the contrary, it has been established that they 
tend to prevent such diseases. Among the employees of large war-gas 
factories influenza and similar diseases were practically unknown dur¬ 
ing the period of the plagues that swept our country at the close of 
the World War. Extensive arrangements are being made in the labor¬ 
atories of the Chemical Warfare Service to conduct research into the 
fields of medical employment of war gases and by-products. 


The Army in Peace 


81 


One of the greatest problems of modern sanitation is that of effective 
and safe fumigation. It is necessary to wage continuous war against 
the rats and other vermin which carry plagues. Only recently, in the 
fumigation of a ship in San Francisco, several men were killed and 
many injured by the fumes of hydrocyanic acid. The Chemical War¬ 
fare Service offered their cooperation and have already given promise 
of solving this problem. Tear gas was finally selected by them as the 
best possibility for use in fumigation. Near the end of October a test 
was made with a concentration of one-eighth the strength which would 
injure human life. Several officers spent the night in a room adjoining 
the kitchen which, was selected for the test. The gas was projected 
into the kitchen in the evening, and the officers in the next room re¬ 
ported that they were not inconvenienced thereby. In the morning it 
was discovered that every mouse, fly, cockroach, and other insect was 
dead. The gas was then projected into a large warehouse, killing hun¬ 
dreds of pounds of rats, mice, bats, and other vermin. The experiment 
was repeated in fumigating a ship, and the results were beyond ex¬ 
pectations. The Public Health Service are enthusiastic about this 
work and the possibilities seem limitless. 

Tear gases have also been demonstrated as very effective in employ¬ 
ment against barricaded criminals and in attempted jail deliveries and 
other riotous actions. The gas mask is becoming very valuable for use 
in mining activities. The Chemical Warfare Service has produced the 
only substance suitable for protection of miners against the deadly 
carbon-monoxide gas. In their development of gas masks and suitable 
materials therefor the scientists of the Chemical Warfare Service have 
made another valuable contribution to the industries in the form of a 
very active charcoal which is useful in manufacturing gasoline from 
natural gas and coal-tar products. 

It is becoming recognized that any effective control of the boll weevil 
and similar pests must come from the adaptation of these poisonous 
compounds. The Air Service is cooperating in experiments by spray¬ 
ing the fields and orchards with the vapors. Experiments are being 
conducted by the Chemical Warfare Service in cooperation with the 
Navy Department in hopes of producing a nonfouling paint and thereby 
avoiding the results of barnacles which gather on ship bottoms. Gases 
are being used in experiments with the hope of destroying the teredo 
and limnoria, which bore into submerged timbers in our southern 
waters. Finally, in addition to all of these constructive activities, one 
must recognize that the work of the Chemical Warfare Service has led 
the way to the foundation of an American dye industry that should 
one day be one of our most valued assets. 

Do you know that the Army started our steel industry, guided it 
through its early development, and, in cooperation with the Navy De¬ 
partment, stimulated it throughout its expansion to the present gigantic 
proportions? Our Interior Department was an outgrowth of the activ¬ 
ities of the War Department; in fact, the latter once consisted of 
three parts which are now the War Department proper, the Navy De- 


82 


Why Defend the Nation? 


partment, and the Interior Department. The Bureau of Public Roads 
grew out of the work of the Corps of Engineers. The Signal Corps can 
be said to have played a major part in development of the telegraph 
industries. The development of our Life-Saving Service was possible 
largely through the cooperation of hundreds of miles of governmental 
telegraph lines, operated by the Signal Corps. The Lighthouse Service 
that plays such an important part in coastwise and terminal-ocean 
traffic, was built up by the Army and turned over to civil agencies only 
after its success was assured. In all of these ways the Army has 
proved that it can lead the way as a pioneer, not only through forests 
and over prairies but also through the fields of science and industry. 

The dominating influences in building up “steel” have been the 
provision of markets, the increasing adaptation in employment, and 
the specifications for design. The Army was the original market for 
steel products—offered an ever greater field for the use of steel—and 
led the entire industry in specifications for design. High-grade steel, 
as we know it today, dates from the Civil War, when the Army called 
for superior quality in gun metal. In 1880 the requirements for high- 
carbon steel in making guns were fully 50 per cent more severe than 
were the general industrial specifications. The Ordnance Department 
introduced alloy steels in the manufacture of Army material, and pre¬ 
scribed the use of nickel steel at a time when there were very few 
commercial uses for nickel steel in the entire country and when only 
two or three commercial concerns were capable of its manufacture. 
In 1875 the board of investigation at the Watertown Arsenal estab¬ 
lished a program of investigation and built an emery-testing machine 
that was the largest in the world—this machine is still in daily use, 
and was only recently superseded in its rank as the largest in the world. 
The work of Watertown Arsenal was truly pioneer work in this coun¬ 
try, and it has a tremendous influence in stimulating similar investi¬ 
gations on the part of technical schools and colleges. Until the cre¬ 
ation of the Bureau of Standards, the arsenal was recognized leader 
in metallurgical study and it is even today doing very original work 
which must have a noteworthy effect in the future. 

When the American citizen takes his family for a day in the 
country he frequently meets with a mishap, perhaps breaking a part 
of his automobile. Does he seek a country blacksmith or a machine 
shop to repair his Ford? Not he. Proceeding to the nearest garage 
he finds a stock of spare parts which meet his wants and enable him to 
go “flivving” off in short order. He might, if he is scientifically in¬ 
clined, utter a brief prayer to the inventor of “interchangeable manu¬ 
facture” which produces spare parts. If he were historically inclined 
as well he could look back over a century and discover that he owes 
this happy development to the filling of a contract for 10,000 muskets 
in 1798. That was the beginning of interchangeable manufacture. 
When the War of 1812 was forced on us the art was so well established 
that interchangeability had become a normal contract specification of 
the War Department. One of our contracts in that year contained a 


The Army in Peace 


83 


clause which reads as follows: “The component parts of pistols are to 
correspond so exactly that any limb or part of one pistol may be 
fitted to any other pistol of the 20,000.” 

It is natural that out of this early development in Army arsenals 
should have come some consideration for the problem which we now 
call “scientific management.” We feel that America leads the world 
in the art of the efficiency expert. Does my inquiring friend know that 
in this field as in so many others the Army appeared as a pioneer? 

I refer him to Doctor Taylor, who is well known as a noted protago¬ 
nist of scientific management and who makes frequent mention of the 
work of the Army in this respect. In one of his books he observes that 
the card system of shop returns was invented and introduced as a com¬ 
plete system for the first time in the Government shops of the Frank- 
ford Arsenal, and that this was a distinct advance in the art of 
efficiency management. My prospect is thus brought once more to 
appreciate that the by-products of our national defense can not sensi¬ 
bly be ignored. 

It is common knowledge that one of the greatest developments ahead 
of us must be that of effectively utilizing our great resources in water 
power. It is necessary to harness this cheap energy, and yet to do it 
in such manner as not to interfere with our navigable waterways, 
with the growth of our national forest, and with the public enjoyment 
of our national parks. In the second year of the power commission 
it has had to study projects for proposed developments of water power 
in excess of 20,000,000 horsepower, or more than twice the existing 
power development of this country and more than the combined poten¬ 
tial resources of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Arctic and Baltic 
drainages of Russia—the principal water power region of Europe. In 
two years its engineers have had to study projects for development 
greater than double the resources of France and Italy and six times 
the aggregate projects for development of resources under Federal 
control in the preceding 20 years. The greater part of this work of 
examination and study has fallen to the War Department, and the 
Chief Engineer and his assistants and the chief counsel of the power 
commission are officers of the Regular Army. 

Does the citizen know that the Army organized the Weather Bureau 
and that during Army control this bureau gave out information that 
was of tremendous interest throughout the scientific world? Does he 
know that the Army has played a prominent part in diverting our 
explosives production into fields that offer great hopes of building up 
a great American nitrate industry which would be of inestimable 
benefit to the farmer? Does he know what the Army has done in 
helping to conserve our resources? The Army Engineers have led us 
in flood prevention and have assisted greatly in forest protection. At 
the present time the Air Service is cooperating, as much as funds will 
permit, in the work of the Department of Agriculture concerning 
forest-fire prevention. In the past year over 100,000 square miles of 


84 


Why Defend the Nation? 


forest lands were covered by fires. Of 1,248 fires occurring in the 
national preserves of California in three months, the aerial patrols 
reported 664 and were first to report 376. 

“Why must such products come from the Army?” I am asked. 
“Why can not some other agency do all of this work?” 

I reply that neither the Government nor any individuals could afford 
to maintain a great pioneer organization with no other functions. Such 
benefits can come only from the work of an organized and trained 
public force which can produce them virtually as by-products and still 
perform its primary tasks. About the middle of last April the Missis¬ 
sippi River rose to the point of threatening disaster to thousands of 
families along its banks. Members of Congress from that region 
visited the War Department for advice, and varying degrees of concern 
were manifested by officials of the States affected. It was apparent 
that there was no organization other than the Army that could drop 
its routine tasks and handle such an emergency. The War Department 
had experienced this situation in the past and had prepared detailed 
regulations to govern the forces which might have to operate under 
these conditions. It was necessary only to put the existing machinery 
into motion. The governors of four States were notified that certain 
military authorities would be assigned districts in their States. Mili¬ 
tary authorities were informed of depots which would furnish supplies 
needed. Commanding generals of corps areas were advised of the 
situation, and they made arrangements for utilizing troops that might 
be necessary. Our fears were not realized. The danger passed. There 
was an excellent illustration, however, of the potential value of an 
organization like ours. 

This potential power has unfortunately been called upon many times 
in our past. After the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906, it 
was the Army that took charge of disorder and administered the forces 
of order. In the Galveston disaster of 1915 the Army made a record 
for heroic achievement. Similarly the constructive value of the War 
Department was felt in the Mount Pelee disaster and during the Ohio 
and Mississippi floods of 1912. There is a huge file of grateful letters 
received by the department for its work in these instances and others 
similar, of which the following is an example: 

“Whereas the relief extended to our people during the recent flood 
* * * has minimized the great loss and damage * * * 

“Be it resolved by the Harrisonburg flood relief committee * * * 
That we hereby extend an expression of our thanks and appreciation 
for the prompt and efficient manner in which the said relief has been 
given by the War Department * * *.” (1912 floods, Mississippi.) 

Last year, in the coal fields of West Virginia, a situation arose that 
promised untold difficulties for the industry and for the community. 
The subsidence was so sudden that few citizens were able to appreciate 
the firm yet friendly manner in which the Army took control and in¬ 
sisted that the rights of the public must be maintained against the 
actions of any particular class or classes. In a very short time they 


The Army in Peace 


85 


assured peace without making a single aggressive move and without 
antagonizing any party to the pending disputes. It is scarcely too 
much to state that these incidents alone justify the investments which 
we have made in a national force organized and trained for the na¬ 
tional defense against outlawry. It is amazing to discover how little 
our citizens understand of this dramatic history of purely civic accom¬ 
plishment. It is equally amazing to most of them when they do learn 
the facts. 

There is a tendency to think of military men as hard-boiled masters 
of red tape and inefficiency. My own interest in the matter has led 
me to investigate the individual civil records of officers, to determine 
the effects of their military training. Their records are brilliant. In 
spite of the fact that their training has been for war, the influence of 
the high ideals of the Army and its spirit of teamwork has been enough 
to counteract the handicaps and enable officers to compete on fair 
terms. During the first century of its existence, West Point sent 2,371 
of its graduates into civil life, most of them after some years of mili¬ 
tary service in the Army. Even a very small college would graduate 
as many as 2,371 in a few years. Yet where is there a small or great 
college or university that can excel the record of these 2,371 graduates 
in civil life? Here is their record: 


President of the United States. 1 

President of the Confederate States. 1 

Presidential candidates. 3 

Vice presidential candidates. 2 

Members of the Cabinet. 4 

Ambassador . 1 

Ministers to foreign countries. 14 

Charge d’affaires to foreign countries. 2 

Consuls general and consuls. 12 

Members of Congress. 24 

United States civil officers of various kinds. 171 

Presidential electors. 8 

Governors of States or Territories. 16 

Bishops. 1 

Lieutenant governors. 2 

Judges . 14 

Members of State legislatures. 77 

Presiding officers of State senates or houses of representatives... 8 
Members of conventions for the formation of State constitutions.. 13 

State officers of various kinds. 51 

Adjutants, inspectors, quartermasters general, chief engineers of 

States . 28 

Officers of State militia. 158 

Mayors of cities. 17 

City officers. 57 

Presidents of universities or colleges. 46 

Principals of academies or schools. 32 


























86 


Why Defend the Nation? 


Regents and chancellors of educational institutions 

Professors and teachers. 

Superintendent of Coast Survey.. 

Surveyors general of States and Territories. 

Chief engineers of States... 

Presidents of railroads and other corporations.... 

Chief engineers of railroads and other public works 
Superintendents of railroads and other public works 

Treasurers and receivers of railroads. 

Civil engineers. 

Superior general of clerical order. 

Clergymen. 

Physicians . 

Manufacturers . 

Artists . 

Bankers . 

Bank presidents. 

Bank officers. 

Editors . 

Authors . 

Merchants . 

Farmers and planters. 

Electrical engineers . 

Architects .*. 

“Where do officers gain the administrative knowledge that is neces¬ 
sary to make such records as these?” 

After all that I have told of the achievement of the Army at home 
and abroad my questioners still fail to appreciate that the War Depart¬ 
ment and the Army is one of the greatest administrative concerns in 
the country. That it is criticised for adherence to “red tape” is true, 
but the critics often fail to appreciate that this is because such a huge 
organization, open as it is to criticism from any citizen of this coun¬ 
try, must be conservative and “safe,” both of which qualities demand 
recognized forms of procedure. In the files of the Adjutant General 
are records of more than 30,000,000 individuals, nearly 10,000,000 of 
whom have had military service. I could make some picturesque com¬ 
parisons, such as that the cover sheets of draft records alone would, if 
placed side by side, reach from the Atlantic to the Pacific, etc. The 
records of the Adjutant General are accommodated in 83,000 filing 
cabinets and occupy 450,000 square feet of floor surface. 

The very citizen who criticises us for “red tape” might have sent 
us one of the countless queries which we receive daily, such as, “Did 
George Washington throw a silver dollar across the Potomac River?” 
and “Who originated the term ‘Buddy’?” If the citizen makes these 
inquiries in good faith, we are required to answer him, for it is his 
business even more than ours. 

During May, 1919, the average number of pieces of mail received 
daily in this one office of the Adjutant General was over a half million. 


14 

136 

1 

11 

14 

87 

63 

62 

24 

228 

1 

20 

14 

77 

3 

18 

8 

23 

30 

179 

122 

230 

5 

7 


























The Army in Peace 


87 


In 1919 over 80,000,000 pieces of mail were received. I give these 
figures to the curious one in order to convince him that there is plenty 
of opportunity for the Army officer to learn administration. The 
Adjutant General’s is but one of a great number of offices maintained 
by officers of the Army. There is every known phase of human life 
involved in their administrative calendars. Does the citizen realize 
that the Army must train thousands of young men not only for war but 
also in vocational and educational features? We have a continuous 
school problem and a normal provision for training men in the follow¬ 
ing occupations: 

Horseshoeing, tractor drivers, dynamo tenders, steam-engine tenders, 
firemen, oilers, carpenters of all kinds, concrete workers, photographers, 
lithographers, painters, stonemasons, brick masons, blacksmiths, 
plumbers, pipe fitters, welders, printers, linemen, radio operators, tele¬ 
graph operators, switchboard operators, auto mechanics, chauffeurs, 
battery repairmen, tire repairers, ignition and carburetion experts, 
sheet-metal workers, canvas workers, tailors, butchers, clerks, ste¬ 
nographers, typists, bookkeepers, instrument repairers, machinists, 
foundry men, pattern makers, farriers, pharmacists’ assistants, X-ray 
operators, buglers, bandsmen, surveyors, topographers, highway con¬ 
struction men, bridge builders, draftsmen, interior wiremen, riggers, 
radio electricians, telephone electricians, telegraph electricians, motion- 
picture operators, bakers, cooks, cargadors, teamsters, wagon masters, 
wheelwrights, shoemakers, saddlers, laundrymen, and storekeepers. 

Officers must pay the Army, keep accounts for the Army, feed the 
Army, give spiritual guidance for the Army, and in a word admin¬ 
ister the Army according to the most civilized concept of human 
administration. Every officer must understand the military law. 

Incidentally, in the face of all criticism which has been leveled at 
our system of military jurisprudence, it has been pronounced excellent 
by some of our best civil lawyers. The' citizen sometimes asks me 
about the hard-boiled methods of prison administration prevalent in 
the Army. I invite his attention to various comments which indicate 
that our military prisons have donated many valuable contributions to 
the science and art of prison management. Everything possible is done 
to humanize our prisons and to develop the unfortunate occupants so 
that they can practice trades upon release and, even more important, 
so that their criminal tendencies might be lessened or completely eradi¬ 
cated. In each of our prisons there is a board of psychiatry and so¬ 
ciology which has for its purpose to modernize our treatment of this 
problem. Does the citizen realize all this? 

“No, indeed,” he replies, “and I am intensely interested by your 
exposition.” “I begin to see what you meant when you claimed that 
your policy of national defense was of the participating type.” . “Nev¬ 
ertheless,” he frequently adds, “it costs too much, doesn’t it, Mr. 
Secretary ?” 

It is indeed a serious objection, at this trying time, that national 
defense should be so costly, or rather that it is made to appear so 


88 


Why Defend the Nation? 


costly. As a matter of truth, it is not costly. In 1921, in the city 
of Boston, Mass., from each dollar paid by the citizen for taxes 3J4 
cents went for military preparation and 3.7 cents for naval prepara¬ 
tion. In other words, his policy of national defense (which he 
admits to be a participating policy) cost only 7.2 per cent of his 
total taxation. This is astonishingly small. The citizen is so often 
misled into charging up against his policy of insurance the cost of 
a war which his insurance failed to guarantee against. He should 
rest assured that in a defenseless state he would be continually at¬ 
tacked by predatory forces, and his insurance is only against these 
potential attacks. The World War is costing us a great amount, it 
is true. A comparatively small investment in preparation before the 
war would, however, have greatly decreased the present cost of our 
unpreparedness. 

This accusation that the War Department wastes its money ex¬ 
travagantly is, of course, rather easy to refute. I do not know where 
this idea started—that the Army wastes its money so lavishly—unless 
it is from the knowledge that when we rush into war unprepared 
there is great general inefficiency of spending at a time when we must 
“spend or take the consequences.” I do not desire to inject a politi¬ 
cal atmosphere into this discussion, and accordingly I hesitate to 
discuss in detail our efforts to save money. I believe that the opera¬ 
tions of the Budget Bureau have, however, been approved by all 
parties. It seems safe to mention that during the past fiscal year the 
War Department withheld from expenditure about $85,000,000 which 
it might have spent. Of this amount, $35,000,000 represents projects 
that were postponed, while $50,000,000 was actually turned back into 
the unappropriated balance in the Treasury. 

“Why, that is unheard of!” 

Unheard of perhaps, but true. It is difficult to appreciate the deter¬ 
mination with which the entire Army has entered into our campaign 
of saving. Does the citizen know that the chief coordinator has been 
assisted by nine regular officers and that there would doubtless be more 
of them in the Bureau of the Budget if their numbers were not now so 
limited? Or that the present coordinator is himself a retired officer of 
the Army? 

I had occasion to remark a recent editorial in which surprise was 
manifested at the activity of the officials of the War Department in 
appealing for a minimum strength for our Regular Army (150,000- 
130,000). The editor remarked that we should follow the sensible 
policy of other American countries in spending our money for peace 
organizations instead of for warlike preparation. I wondered if he 
knew what policy he was advocating? The United States maintains 
a smaller per capita strength of Army than that of any other Amer¬ 
ican country except Canada, which is protected by its participation in 
the British Empire. If we followed the average policy of the Amer¬ 
icas we should maintain a Regular Army of 200,000. If Canada is 
excluded as a part of an Empire whose per capita strength is much 


The Army in Peace 


89 


greater than ours, we should raise this figure to 250,000. If we deter¬ 
mine our policy upon a basis of national wealth the figure would be 
still higher. If we followed the average policy of the world we should 
have approximately a million men constantly under arms. The editor, 
no doubt, didn’t know all of this. It is to the advantage of all of us 
that we know these facts about the country in which we live, or else 
that we do not distort facts for purposes of argument. 

I mentioned that Canada is maintaining a smaller army than we 
are. She is, however, manifesting an interest in military preparation 
in another direction that can be gauged by one brief comparison. 
During the past summer we trained about 22,000 men in our citizens’ 
training camps. Canada trained about 100,000 men in hers. With 
less than one-tenth our population she is training five times as many 
citizens for national defense. Her “sensible policy” of pacification (to 
quote the editor) involves fifty times the intensity of effort that we 
exert in preparation for defense. What a striking contrast this is. 
Canada evidently believes in the principle expressed by Thomas Jeffer¬ 
son: “None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army.” 

“But how does Canada afford this training?” inquires my curious 
prospect. 

I might reply that it is by cutting down on her use of chewing gum. 
We are a nation of gum chewers. In a year we spend three times as 
much for “chewing gum and candy” as we spend for military prepara¬ 
tion. For soda and confections we spend more than three times; for 
tobacco, more than four times; for perfumery, jewelry, and other items 
of adornment, nearly five times; and for theaters, cabarets, and similar 
amusements, more than three times. In other words, this military 
preparation that appears to cost so much really costs us about one- 
eighteenth of what we spend for mild vices and “harmless amuse¬ 
ments.” 

During and after the Conference for Limitation of Armament last 
fall, I frequently heard the remark, “Why doesn’t this country set an 
example in practice, as she does in words, for the reduction of military 
forces ?” 

I reply that although we are one of the greatest of powers, our Army 
stands sixteenth on the list of the armies of the world. If we had 
taken the average of military strengths of the powers in that confer¬ 
ence, we should raise our strength to about 450,000 men. If we based 
our strength upon population we should have, roughly, 1,000,000 men. 
Yet we reduced recently to a strength of 125,000 men. 

“Oh,” is the reply, “but we could quickly throw 4,000,000 men into 
the field.” 

Really, the Army can not take the field without materials and sup¬ 
plies. The proceedings of the conference would have shown that 
whereas Great Britain was prepared to throw a force of 6,000,000 men 
into immediate service, France more than 5,000,000, Italy more than 
3,000,000, and Japan more than 1,000,000, we could with difficulty out¬ 
fit an army of a bare million, even if these were available, officered 


90 


Why Defend the Nation? 


and freshly trained for service. “No, my friend,” I reply, “there need 
be no fear that we might fail to lead the way to reduction. By every 
conceivable method of comparison you can find that we have set the 
example in limitation by a very pronounced inferiority to the strength 
of any civilized power of great importance in the world.” The great¬ 
est fear is that we might lead too far and tempt other nations before 
they are prepared for the trust which reduction implies. 

The response sometimes comes, “Would not our trust cause other 
nations to disarm rather than to take the aggressive?” 

I reply that I would like to believe it. There are few exceptions 
to the general rule that all peoples desire peace and decry war. No 
country has made more determined efforts to remove possible causes of 
conflict and to lighten burdens of preparedness. For further develop¬ 
ments we must, however, wait until the world follows the example 
already set. We damage other peoples by placing too much trust in 
them—a trust that we can not even place in our own population. 

“What do you mean, Mr. Secretary, by saying that we can not trust 
our own people?” 

I reply that we can not bare our own institutions to the citizens of 
the country—that we must provide a guard that protects not only the 
institutions, but also unfortunate individuals against their own worst 
tendencies, which might lead them to crimes destructive alike to the 
public weal and to their own happiness. The 1920 census discloses 
that there were in the country at least 32,314 marshals, sheriffs, and 
detectives; 82,214 policemen; and 115,553 watchmen, guards, and 
doorkeepers—a total of 229,981 employed for protection against dan¬ 
gerous impulses. Added to this there were 50,171 firemen, making a 
total of 280,152 engaged in protection of our institutions against the 
elements which force us to insure our private affairs. Yet we main¬ 
tain less than half the number as our share of the police of the world 
—against peoples at most no more law-abiding than are we. In one 
year the insurance companies of the United States paid out to policy¬ 
holders as insurance against death, fire, marine losses, and industrial 
loss over $1,125,000,000. It is presumable that policyholders paid at 
least as much for insurance. Added to this amount is the amount paid 
to the police and watchmen for protection. We invest in a military 
preparedness policy, accordingly, less than one-fifth of the amount paid 
for internal insurance and protection. 

“These figures are very remarkable,” he says, “I am impressed with 
the logic of your position—but something still makes me dislike to 
spend money for military preparations.” 

If I can not defend myself against the imputations of militarism I 
turn back to my predecessors for support. John C. Calhoun remarked 
many years ago when he ran afoul of similar objections: “If our lib¬ 
erty should ever be endangered by the military power gaining the 
ascendancy, it will be from the necessity of making those mighty and 
irregular efforts to retrieve our affairs, after a series of disasters, 
caused by a want of military knowledge, just as in our physical system 


The Army in Peace 


91 


a state of the most dangerous excitement and paroxysm follows that 
of the greatest debility and prostration. To avoid these dangerous 
consequences and to prepare the country to meet a state of war, par¬ 
ticularly at its commencement, with honor and safety, much must de¬ 
pend upon the organization of our military peace establishment.” 
My immediate predecessor also observed that “I know of no war in 
which America has been engaged, offensive or defensive, which was 
brought about by army pressure, or, indeed, stimulated by military 
desire.” This deep belief has been manifested by practically every 
public official in close contact with this department, and it has been, 
perhaps, the most common thought of our Chief Executives that we 
must look well to defensive plans if we would accomplish best our 
peaceful program. One has but to look over the face of the earth 
today to realize that even those nations who have adopted the most 
fantastic theories of idealistic organization continue impressed with 
their need for national defense. 

‘‘Perhaps this is all true,” replies the citizen, “but why is it, then, 
that the officials of the War Department and of the Army are always 
talking and thinking about national defense and about war, when the 
rest of us are thinking about peace?” 

The citizen so often forgets that we pay these officials to think about 
war and about defense. The policemen are supposed to be on the 
lookout for thefts and the firemen for fires. The householder thinks 
only of the robberies in his own block. I ask the citizen a question, 
“How many wars have we Americans been through in our history?” 

“Oh, about five or six,” is the reply. 

I then point out to him that while he counts war on the fingers of 
one hand the War Department numbers its actual calls to active 
service at more than 100. 

“Why, I didn’t know that! What were these calls?” 

I observe that there has actually been an average of one call every 
year and a half, as follows: 

1775. The Revolution. 

1782. Wyoming Valley insurrection. 

1786. Shay’s rebellion. 

1790. Northwest Indian war. 

1791. Whisky insurrection. 

1798. War with France. 

1799. Fries’s rebellion. 

1801. Tripolitan war. 

1806. Burr conspiracy. 

1806. Sabine expedition. 

1807. Chesapeake Bay affair. 

1808. Lake Champlain affair. 

1811. Northwest Indian war. 

1812. Great Britain. 

1812. Seminole war. 

1813. Peoria Indians. 

1813. Creek Indians. 


92 


Why Defend the Nation 


1817. Second Seminole. 

1819. Yellowstone expedition. 

1823. Blackfeet Indians. 

1827. Lefevre Indian war. 

1831. Sac and Fox Indians. 

1832. Blackhawk war. 

1832. South Carolina nullification. 

1833. Cherokee war. 

1834. Pawnee Indians. 

1835. Third Seminole. 

1836. Second Creek Indians. 

1837. Osage Indians. 

1838. Heatherly Indian war. 

1838. Mormons. 

1838. New York-Canada frontier. 

1846. Doniphan’s Mexican expedition. 
1846. Mexican war. 

1846. New Mexican expedition. 

1848. Cayuse war. 

1849. Navajo. 

1849. Comanche Indians. 

1850. Pitt River expedition (California). 

1851. Yuma expedition. 

1851. Utah Indian. 

1851. Oregon and Washington Indians. 

1855. Snake Indians. 

1855. Sioux Indians. 

1855. Yakima expedition. 

1855. Cheyenne Indian. 

1855. Florida war (Seminoles). 

1856. Kansas border troubles. 

1857. Gila expedition. 

1857. Sioux Indians. 

1857. Mountain Meadow massacre. 

1857. Utah expedition. 

1858. Northern Indian expedition. 

1858. Puget Sound expedition. 

1858. Spokane Indian troubles. 

1858. Navajo expedition. 

1858. Wichita expedition. 

1859. Colorado River expedition. 

1859. Pecos expedition. 

1859. Antelope Hills expedition. 

1859. Bear River expedition. 

1859. San Juan imbroglio. 

1859. John Brown raid. 

1859. Cortina troubles. 

1860. Pah Ute expedition. 

1860. Kiowa and Comanche Indians. 


The Army in Peace 


93 


I860. Carson Valley expedition. 

1860. Navajo expedition. 

1861. Apache Indians. 

1861. Civil war. 

1862. Indian massacres (Minn.). 

1862. Sioux Indians. 

1863. Cheyenne war. 

1865. Northwestern Indian war. 

1865. Fenian raid. 

1867. Mexican Border Indian war. 

1868. Canadian River expedition. 

1871. Yellowstone expedition. 

1871. Fenian troubles. 

1872. Yellowstone expedition. 

1872. Modoc campaign. 

1873. Yellowstone expedition. 

1874. Indian Territory war. 

1874. Sioux war. 

1874. Black Hills war. 

1875. Nevada expedition. 

1876. Sioux war. 

1876. Powder River expedition. 

1876. Big Horn expedition. 

1876. Sioux war. 

1877. Nez Perces campaign. 

1878. Ute campaign. 

1878. Snake Indian. 

1890. Sioux. 

1891. Mexican Border (Tin Horn war). 

1895. Bannock Indian trouble. 

1898. Spanish-American war. 

1898. Chippewa Indians. 

1899. Philippine Insurrection. 

1900. Boxer Insurrection. 

1912. Nicaraguan expedition. 

1913. Haiti and San Domingo. 

1914. Vera Cruz. 

1916. Punitive expedition in Mexico. 

1917. Germany. 

The Army remembers these incidents by the loss of friends or prede¬ 
cessors and, generally, by the augmentation of the difficulties in each 
case due to lack of previous preparation. The country should remem¬ 
ber them as events in the evolution of our very active nationality 
during which our principles and our possessions were defended or our 
possessions actually increased. We can accordingly find in this his¬ 
tory what is a very great dividend in return for the comparatively 
small investment made by our country for its defensive preparation, 
and yet a very great cost for our lack of such preparations. When I 
have reached this conclusion my prospective supporter for national 


94 


Why Defend the Nation? 


defense generally becomes very silent and thoughtful and leaves me— 
no doubt to pore over his histories in hopes of finding something wrong 
with my story. Since he never returns with refutation, I assume that 
he has accepted my statements and been somewhat instructed. 

I trust, gentlemen, that I have not wearied you with this quite 
expansive treatment of what is to me an intensely interesting subject. 
I hope that you will forgive my method of attacking the problem, and 
that if you are wearied you will appreciate that it is because I lack 
the graphic powers of an Edward Bok, and not because my purpose 
is less important than arousing an interest in the Empire of the 
Netherlands. I feel convinced that this chamber understands the 
merits of the policy which I have endeavored to present in its true 
light to the citizens of our country. I did not come before it to sell 
insurance to you gentlemen, for you have always been co-workers for 
reasonable defense. I do hope, however, that you might, individually 
or collectively, from time to time remember my little discussion and 
pass it along. Knowledge of our country and of its institutions we 
must have. We are united in our ideals; we must be united in our 
methods of defending those ideals. Regardless of our political affilia¬ 
tions or beliefs, we can always join in wholehearted response to the 
appeal of Theodore Roosevelt when he cried: “Our voice is now 
potent for peace, and is so potent for peace because we are not afraid 
of war. But our protestations upon behalf of peace would neither 
receive nor deserve the slightest attention if we were impotent to make 
them good.” 





































